


For Sentimental Reasons - Part II

by Persephone



Series: Willing to Take the Risk [11]
Category: Valentine's Day (2010)
Genre: Bradley Cooper - Freeform, Canon Gay Character, Canon Gay Relationship, Eric Dane - Freeform, Family, Family Shenanigans, Iowa, M/M, Rare Characters, Rare Fandoms, Rare Pairings, Romance, Romantic Comedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-14
Updated: 2013-06-14
Packaged: 2017-12-14 23:28:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 23,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/842666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Persephone/pseuds/Persephone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For Holden, this is family.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“You wait here,” Sean was saying. “I’ll get your car. I’ll phone you when I’m out front.”

Pulling on his winter jacket, he slid Sean an amused look he made sure Sean didn’t see. By the suite’s doors, Sean was at the side table picking up the keys to his rental car. Without waiting for an acknowledgement, Sean opened the door and went out.

He could only smile.

It had been two days since Sean had well and truly branded him as his own before fangirls and the town of Johnston, and Sean was in the last vestiges acting as though he wasn’t capable of so much as feeding himself.

Sean seemed to believe he had so much to make up for that his entire attitude toward their relationship had changed for a few days, the result being that Sean was no longer pretending he hadn’t always wanted to treat him like a wife with a nine month pregnancy.

It wasn’t as if it didn’t have its delicious sides; they had had a lot of fun last night the type they hadn’t had together in a long while. But even last night it had been under a slight emotional tug-of-war with Sean’s guilt. Though this morning he could see the guilt receding in the wake of a man who was finding himself again.

Ultimately it was very sweet, and he hoped, temporary, and he felt it was cathartic for Sean. A kind of penance he would allow him if would make him feel better.

At ten in the morning the temperature outside was again in the mid-thirties, following the cold freeze that had brought the overnight snow a couple days ago. And the weird winter sun was out. People had been telling him since he came to town that he must have brought the LA sunshine with him, and he didn’t have the heart to tell them they didn’t know what they were talking about.

All set to leave, a text suddenly trilled in on the dreaded new sound profile he had set for his father. 

Upset at himself because his heart skipped a beat, and he hated that his father could still affect him like that, he pulled out his phone and unlocked the screen. 

He saw for a microsecond the beginning of a text that read _God dammit, Holden!_ —before deleting it. He could read it later, but he could guess what it said. And he didn’t want to see it later even by accident and have it ruin his day.

There would certainly be more texts on the way. But he was on his way to continuing what were promising to be some of the most pleasurable days of his life, and his father’s texts weren’t going to be a part of it.

The phone suddenly began playing the theme for Superman, and a brooding photo of Sean filled the screen. 

It was one of the photos he had covertly taken during the Super Bowl cookout, and pleasure replaced tension as he smiled at the photo, so very in love, and so proud of his new sound profiles. Of this one in particular.

He then answered before Sean decided he needed assistance in this area as well and told him he’d be right down.

Checking his pockets one last time to make sure he had his wallet, he picked up his trusty beanie and headed downstairs.

Sean was waiting for him by the elevator doors. Apparently having sensed that his pregnant wife needed help getting off the elevators.

He covered wanting to say something funny—he didn’t think Sean would quite laugh it off—by concentrating on putting on his beanie.

Sean came forward and slipped his arm around his waist, closing the space between them by planting a lingering kiss to his temple. He paused fixing his beanie to let Sean finish, then simply went along as he was escorted out, Sean’s fingers trailing down the front of his jacket as Sean checked that his zipper was properly secured.

Rajiv, the hotel manger, who was standing behind the receptionist’s desk, saw their lovebird display and started smiling. The new receptionist, a guy he hadn’t yet met, gushed a greeting at them, to which Rajiv added his own. Sean gave them a vague, “Hey, how’s it going,” which he had come to realize was some kind of football player response to hellos from the general public.

But as they cleared the lobby doors, he gave Rajiv a small, friendlier wave. Rajiv gave him a wide smile and a discreetly flashed thumbs-up. 

He allowed himself to be led out.

Sean had indeed brought the car from its parking spot, no more than forty or fifty yards away in the parking lot, and he stood waiting as Sean opened the passenger door and then waited for him to get in. Which he did without protest.

Sean walked back around the front of the Audi to the driver side and got in, looking at his phone.

“Allison’s already there,” Sean said, pocketing the phone and strapping himself in. “Which means there’ll be Louise’s muffins for you.”

“Hmm,” he said. “But it won’t mean as much now without her tucking in my winter vestments.”

Sean cast him a doubtful look, turning the ignition.

“You’re right,” he said. “I’ll find a way to make it work.”

“I have no that doubt you will,” Sean said, with a fondness in his voice he would have found hard to express how much he had missed.

~*~

They were headed to the local high school where Sean was scheduled to meet with the kids from the LGBT club. It was one of the things Sean had set for during his stay but which he had had to shift from the previous week when his mental state had been less than ideal.

Now inside a warm classroom, twenty or so kids had gathered with their faculty-advisor to talk about their fears as queer kids, as they referred to themselves. And Sean was mostly listening.

They wanted mostly to know about how to communicate with other people in their lives about themselves, seeing how well he had handled his own coming out. They even read texts from their friends who weren’t yet out but were thinking about it.

But mostly they talked about the struggle with the feeling that, no matter what, you were different. The nagging feeling that you were not merely a minority but something not entirely right. To which Sean responded that they could at least rest assured they weren’t in any way wrong, that if they wanted to see not entirely right, they only had to follow news from the NFL offseason.

The kids laughed and the mood was lightened. But seated beside Allison and watching the rapt looks on their faces, he was a little reflective.

Though it wasn’t something he would admit, even to Sean, despite all his charity work, he had never had a deep personal experience with the pervasive pain so many people had in not being heterosexual. All the gay men and lesbians he knew were from his social circles, and while there could be snide remarks here and there, their levels of privilege were all the same, if not better within those circles. For most of the people he knew, gay or straight, the most nagging sense of not belonging was if your family wasn’t rich enough.

Now all of that was so far away and so ridiculous in the face of this kind of reality which seemed so plain—here was Sean, and here they were, kids with real insecurities. And suddenly his desire to help felt intensely personal.

It was with those feelings that he watched these kids talk so passionately to Sean, to whom on top of the football fame, they saw as almost invincible. If they told him their pains and fears, he would absorb and vanquish them.

And as far as he could see, Sean really did have that power. Because though Sean had said more than once that he sometimes felt like a fraud, representing a segment of people whose depth of pain he hadn’t felt growing up—even worrying as they left the car that these kids needed a professional and now him—he had more than once assured Sean that his acceptance-filled upbringing was exactly why he could stand in their defense. If these kids needed a shoulder to cry on, or just a shirt to cling to while they found their own footing, he’d told Sean that he could absolutely be that person. He only had to be himself.

Which was ultimately what happened at the conclusion of the meeting. Allison, checking to see if there were leftover muffins to dispose of, which there were not, gathered herself up to leave. She was looking very proud of her younger brother and how far he had come, when a boy went up to Sean and started talked earnestly with him. The boy, who looked about fourteen, hadn’t spoken at all during the meeting. But now he was talking intensely and occasionally gesturing with a sort of sadness.

And he could see the moments before the boy ran out of the strength to hold himself together. Sean started to respond and before Sean had said more than a few sentences, the boy started to cry.

Sean put his arms around him and held him tight while he let it all out, while his friends waited stoically for him. 

He tried not to look too blatantly at the scene, but it was hard not to. Allison, talking to the advisor, was also watching. He was then surrounded by some of the kids, who wanted to know what Bel Air was really like. 

Allison finished up and came over to him, interrupting gently to tell him that she would see him later. He nodded and kissed her cheek, and when he pulled back it was to see her flushed with a clear, general sense of happiness. And with her fair complexion and plump figure, she looked very much like a living doll.

As she waved and left, he stood there looking after her and thinking, _That’s my sister._

~*~

As was always the case, his father seemed to sense that he was soon going to be somewhere near LAX. That wherever he was, he was soon coming home.

Because the texts transmogrified into phone calls. Knowing only that he had come to spend some time with Sean with his family, his father had no reason to know that a crises had been resolved, or that the time was counting down for his return.

But somehow his father could pick up on it. So later that morning as Sean took him into Des Moines to show him around, his phone burned hotly with the calls for a while. He had long ago put it on silent, and after a number of attempts, the phone calls stopped. Then his mother’s started, and though he usually answered hers, because she wasn’t as overt in her pushiness, this time he let those too go unanswered. He sighed, seeing her follow up text. _Darling, we just want to talk._

Hesitantly unlocking the phone, while Sean sorted out their parking in front of the local LGBT offices, he sent her a text saying that he understood, and that he would be calling soon.

Receiving no response from her, even as they rode the elevator minutes later, he breathed a little easier. Or as well as he could with Sean interlacing their fingers and distracting him with each of his caresses. 

It seemed so long since they had been able to do something like this, simply stand together in an elevator holding hands, that it felt completely new.

But his thoughts wandered back to his mother’s calls. She had always been able to call off his father when needed, so his text would create a lull. But he knew it was only a brief respite—it was mid-February after all, and he had told them he and Sean would have a wedding planner picked by the end of January, when Sean came back from the season.

There was a reckoning coming. He knew that. What he didn’t know was to what extent he was ready to get back into the mud with them, when he was so happy being in the sky.

The elevators stopped at the fourth floor, and Sean walked them into an office that erupted with applause.

~*~

Nearly three hours later, they were just leaving the offices. Sean’s visit with them, like with the kids at the high school, had long been overdue, and information and people had piled up to get to him. However, it was more of one long, impromptu party than a series of meetings. And it was a pleasant surprise for a couple of the directors that he had shown up as well, as they knew him to be on the board of several organizations.

A lot of photos were taken to go up on bulletin boards and office walls.

They got back into Johnston at about three in the afternoon, and Sean asked him to join him in picking up Deena from school.

Having never participated in anything of the sort, he remained seated while Sean got out and went to rest against the hood of the Audi. Theirs was lined up with other cars waiting for kids. Parents waved and called out to Sean, who, arms crossed, with one finger scratching his beard, did his nod. Then turning and seeing he wasn’t coming out to join him, Sean crooked his finger at him, indicating that he do so.

He got out into the cold, sunny air and joined him, grateful for the warm engine beneath his ass. He couldn’t understand how he had to be in a winter jacket over a cable knit sweater and layers of clothing, and Sean was barely reacting to the cold in his ever-present winter vest, one jersey and a flannel shirt.

He was there for only a minute, digging Sean’s body heat, before he began noticing that his presence was having an odd, instantaneous effect on the parents.

The greetings suddenly became more sedate, more in a commiserating tone, and it made him realize that by merely standing side by side, they had gone from a single uncle picking up his niece to a couple picking up a daughter.

He wondered whether Sean noticed it, then faced the fact that Sean didn’t notice things of that nature.

Sean only noticed things like when he hadn’t called him back within five hours on a workday. Or two minutes after he had left for work in the morning to tell him that he missed him.

Sean leaned over. “When you come pick ‘em up,” Sean said. “You have to be outside the car, one, so that the administrators can see you, and two, so that the kid can see you. For some reason, they get really excited when they see you standing there at the end of a school day.”

“And you’re telling me this because…”

Sean had his head turned to him and was staring at him. “Because you’re not having a chauffeur pick up our kid from school. They’d love to see you,” he added softly.

Staring at their legs pressed up side by side and thinking how very much he had missed the small things, he was forced to curb his amusement long before Sean finished his earnest but wholly deluded sentiment. 

And though he wished for something witty to say in response, all he could do was enjoy this feeling of being with the Sean he knew and had fallen for, this sexy take-charge quarterback with a heart as soft as putty. This feeling he had missed for so long.

When he stole a look, Sean’s gaze had lowered to his throat, to where his zipper now lay.

“What’re you doing after this?” Sean asked.

He slid Sean a look, smiling as he shrugged.

“Because I have an idea about what we should be doing later.”

“The same thing we were doing before?”

“Yeah,” Sean responded, as if not to a joke. “November sucked for me. You too, right?”

He laughed outright. “Aren’t you supposed to be spending time with Davey after this? He’s taking off early from work, right?”

Sean kept staring at him, his breathing slow and steady. He knew the look all too well. 

Smiling, he told him that while he was flattered, he really ought not to ditch his best friend for some afternoon action.

“And how the heck has he been spending all this time with you and not going into work?” he asked in true fascination. “Won’t he get fired?”

“Don’t change the subject.”

Pressing a finger to his lips, he laughed and shook his head. “Okay, I won’t. But I think you should spend as much time as you can with Davey because you don’t get to see him that often.”

A frown settled on Sean’s face, as if he had just said the opposite of what was a good idea, but Sean took the rejection in silence. Or so he thought.

There and then, Sean pulled his phone from his pocket and tapped at it. Then he put the phone to his ear. “Hey…. yeah. Uh… can we make it six? No, nothing, just— well, we can just go later.” A pause followed on Sean’s side, while Davey’s amused voice came through in a steady muffle on the handset.

He couldn’t make out what Davey had said, but in the middle of it Sean simply brought the phone back down and disconnected.

“All set,” Sean told him, and he raised an eyebrow in surprise that Sean had ended the call like that, until he noticed that Sean was discreetly sending Davey a text. Whatever he had wanted to say in response, he apparently hadn’t wanted to say it aloud.

A beaming Deena walked out of the main doors a moment later, haphazardly carrying her books and bag and looking so disheveled he had to wonder what she had looked like that morning. But the contentedly happiness radiating from her face was all he could look at, and it made her look like the most angelic of little girls.

And the thought that came to him was, _This is my niece._

~*~

They dropped Deena off at home, following after her as she tromped happily inside. Kay came out of her home office, tousling her hair as she passed on her way to the kitchen. He sat on a cabinet while Sean went over to the sofa and deposited the book bag Deena had forgotten all about.

“Look at you two,” Kay said, folding her arms. “You’d think you were getting married or something.”

Sean snorted under his breath.

“Are you guys still going back to LA on Sunday?”

He tried not to show any kind of a reaction, while Sean unequivocally told her yes, he had to “get Holden back to work.”

“I hear ya,” Kay said understandingly, then glanced toward the kitchen at the slight commotion going on back there from her child. She sighed. “Well, I’ll see you kids later.”

Sean nodded and he took a quiet breath. While she went into the kitchen, they left the house.

They hadn’t discussed returning to LA. But it was Friday, and Sunday was as good a day as any. It gave them time to spend with the family, and time for everyone to adjust to Sean leaving. There was no downside to leaving on Sunday. And no cause to think it was coming up much too soon.

~*~

Shortly after leaving Kay’s, they were sitting inside the parked Audi in the hotel parking lot facing the highway, making out.

They had pushed clothing aside and were fondling each other’s cocks, though he was furtively alternating with seeing how aroused he could get Sean by rubbing and sucking his nipples. The answer was very.

They were taking turns sweating while the other squeezed and stroked, but when Sean gave him that look that meant all business, he slowed his fingers and brought himself back to their surroundings.

“We should get upstairs,” he said slowly, withdrawing his hand from inside Sean’s shirt, and having to apply all his powers of focus not to simply move it somewhere else.

“It’s always something,” Sean replied, relaxing against the driver side door. From there he gazed his heat lamp stare at him, making him fight off the urge to fasten his there and climb into his lap.

But he laughed softly around his thudding heart. “You want to end up doing it right here in the car?”

“It would be new…”

For hot moments the thought burned tantalizing in his head, his mind instantly furnishing him with high quality images of how it could be delectably done. His eyes flew to Sean’s unmoving ones, the only thing in motion on Sean the hand lazily maintaining his arousal.

He came softly back down to earth. “Jail would also be new,” he noted. “Unless public lewdness is legal in Iowa.”

“All the cops know me,” Sean said smoothly. “Come on, it’s in the spirit of October. You’re not afraid of anything.”

“I’m afraid you’re wasting both our time. And after keeping me in a state of insatiation for three months, you need to be thinking of faster ways of making me happy.”

Sean shifted from the door, moving up very close until he was filling up the entire space between him and the rest of the world. Sean brought his face very close, whispering on his mouth, “Close your eyes and count to three.”

He smiled and closed his eyes. “One…”

~*~

On three, Sean was fully on top of him, both of them naked and sweating and without a driver side door in sight.

They had made it to the suite’s bedroom, having lost their winter outwear at the crossing of the living room, which had been accomplished with his eyes closed and Sean guiding him. On two he had been laid gently on the bed, his shoes removed, and his socks, foot-layer of jerseys, and his pants taken off.

“Aren’t you sweating under all this?” Sean had urgently asked, while flashes of sweet pleasure marked each part of his skin his fingers brushed. Panting, he had licked his lips and pointedly said, “Yes.”

Sean had got the message and had freed him of the rest of his clothing, and then had knelt straddling him, his deep, soft gasps accompanying stripping himself of his clothing. He had blindly reached up and held him by his torso, feeling the response in his cock as he touched Sean’s warm, flexing back muscles. Gasping in an intoxicating darkness, he held him and slid his hand down his stomach, avoiding his cock and instead slipping it into his inner thigh. Sean breathed hard but steady above him, and he quickly sat himself up and sought out Sean’s beaded nipple. His tongue slowly flicked back and forth over his hot, tight flesh. Sean growled low and hard in his throat, like a big jungle cat nearing its prey.

“I’m gonna hurt you _so_ good,” Sean said in a long, slow croak, then his hands were suddenly everywhere on him, on his chest, stomach, across his back. He believed he had found a new chink in Sean’s sexual armor. He kissed it and lovingly made to move to the other one. But Sean had found his hair once more, and he held him still to lower his mouth to completely take his. His tongue pushed welcomingly in. Then he started slowly, deeply thrusting it in, and that was their three.

Sean was now gently laying him back down, had somehow gotten out of his own pants and slowly got on top of him.

Sean licked his hand and lowering it to their bodies, but there was no need. They had been sweating from the car and he had been soaking himself in a steady flow ever since.

He gently laced his hands across the small of Sean’s back as Sean laid down between his legs. He reflexively began closing his legs, but came up against Sean’s. Rather than taking his legs, as he usually would in his position, Sean pushed against his, making him keep them neither spread nor around his waist.

The position confused his body, sending stabbing tremors of pleasure down his thighs. He tried again to close them but this time he couldn’t even move. Sean had his legs spread just enough to keep him like that. He felt open, more vulnerable, even more aroused.

Relaxing, he kept his trembling fingers loose on the small of Sean’s back as Sean reached for the edge of mattress over their heads. Propping himself up on his hand beside him and began to thrust in slow, concentrated moves. The bed began to rhythmically rock under them. Sean grabbed his hip, held him in place, and began pouring come all over his groin.

He trembled uncontrollably in disbelief, attempting to look down there. But Sean was doing the opposite of slowing down, fucking his cock harder, bearing down on him. He panted, trying to relax, breathing through the exquisite movements Sean was performing on his body.

Sean smoothed his hand all the way down his chest, down his stomach, stopping at his groin. He took his cock in his hand and started pulling gently on it, like he wished to see what would happen if he did it enough times. It was a startling sensation, making him want to take his clothes off even though he was naked.

He held on to Sean’s lower, his fingers loose, his toes curling, understanding what Sean was doing to him. He breathed, fighting back a rush of pleasure that threatened to end it all too soon.

Sean slid his hand from his cock, brought it wet and slick to his mouth, and he licked quickly, slipping out his tongue hard and fast. Sean pushed both hands into his hair, breathed all over his mouth, then slipped his tongue out, the tip of his tongue causing wet static electricity on his own. “You’re doing great Wilson,” Sean rumbled, and it broke him. Bucking hard, he clutched Sean tight on his ass and lost control. Sean groaned and bore down on his cock, causing him slight, unexpected pain, and sending him into pure, shocked ecstasy.

Arched tightly, he bit out a shocking explicative at the ceiling.

Sean groaned for what seemed like his entire orgasm, touching him all over, until he collapsed against his body, his face pressed against his shoulder.

They were completely out of breath, panting to catch some semblance of it, but they clutched each other’s waists and locked lips.

He rolled Sean on his back and they were eating each other up, holding him still and licking wherever his tongue could go, and then Sean’s palm was suddenly smacking down hard on his ass, causing a biting pain which he then trailed away with his fingertips, only to repeat the process, and he staring down and blinking hard, gasping for dear life.

Sean’s pale eyes held his, watching as he trailed his fingertips once more, while he swore and drooled curses down at him.

“You want that good hurt?” Sean panted up at him. He shook all over, gasping. “Say yes,” Sean demanded.

“Y-y-es,” he cried softly. “Pleas- pleas-“

Sean took him to task.

~*~

And then somehow, Sean still found the energy to get up and go shower for his evening with Davey.

He simply laid there, too fucked to move.

Sean came back out in relatively record time, kissed him on the mouth and told him he’d see him later at his parents. With sleep pulling hard at his used up body, he whispered a faint reply which they both ignored.

He did think, though, that as compared to the morning, Sean seemed more or less back to himself. 

Slipping into sleep, the sound of Sean opening the suite door reached him.

And suddenly his heart began beating very hard.

He opened his eyes and stared up at the ceiling, the sound of the opening door suddenly seeming to fill the entire world.

“Sean?” he called quickly.

Even though he felt weak for calling out, helplessly he recognized the feeling, and waited anxiously to hear Sean’s voice.

“Yeah?” Sean called back.

He stayed silent, his mouth parted, his mind struggling up from sleep. Because suddenly and without warning he could very clearly see himself lying naked on the bed. Holden as he had ever been, having done this countless times with men, received a kiss and then told them goodbye.

The image assailed him with a stunning strength, and for one very long moment he simply laid there, stuck in cycles of the past.

He had heard Sean come back from the suite door, and was likely in the bedroom doorway staring at him and wondering what was going on. He kept his eyes on the ceiling, feeling foolish.

But he slowly forced them down.

Sean was indeed standing there, his winter vest on over a warm winter shirt. The bottom of a fresh jersey piled on his leather belt. His shoulders took up nearly the width of the doorway and his wide stance reminded him of stills he had seen of him on the field.

It helped tremendously that it wasn’t a visual he could associate with anyone else from his past…

Sean was gazing astutely at him. 

“Are you okay, sweetheart?”

The words filled up the room and abruptly broke the mood. 

None of them had ever walked back in and said those words.

He laid back down with a hard breath, the sensations beginning to ebb with a welcome feeling.

“I’m okay,” he said quietly. “Just…a weird moment, I guess.”

Sean was now standing over him, silently by the bedside and staring down at him.

He only moved his hand to touch Sean, but he had tightened his grip on his jeans before he was aware he had completed the action.

Catching his overreaction, he loosened his grip.

Sean watched him in silence. Then he bent a little, lightly placing a finger left of center on his chest, on his heart. 

“You want me to make it go away?”

Soberly, he raised his eyes and held his gaze. “You already have.”

Sean kept staring down at him. Then he bent over, saying, “Gimme one for the road.”

~*~


	2. Chapter 2

Dressed and ready to depart for the Jacksons’, he stood in the middle of the suite’s bedroom staring at his phone.

Knowing fully well how ridiculous, he was nevertheless waiting on a text or phone call from Cecelia or Alastair Wilson that would come in just in time to ruin his evening. The communication hadn’t come within the allotted minute he had given it before he would walk out the door, and now he was actually contemplating calling them and getting it over with.

But he had always known to leave well enough alone. So he pocketed the phone and took a last moment to check himself for his wallet before leaving the room.

He gave the living room one last cursory glance before reaching for the door handle. Right now he would forget LA. He was going to concentrate instead on going to drink some of Anne’s infamous spiked cider, get hugged by a seven year old who thought his name meant instructions for precisely that, and believe in all the magic and happiness he could handle, until it was time to go home.

~*~

He had arrived early simply because he could. At least he had thought he was being early.

Anne had told everyone to come around eight, but it was just after seven when he entered the unlocked house to see Deena and her friends running around. It meant that Kay was around, and on a Friday night, that Allison wasn’t far behind.

Going into the kitchen, he saw through the glass sliding doors that Sean, Davey and Kay were already out on the deck.

The spacious chairs and sofas on the deck had been rearranged to reflect that tonight was family only.

The set up where the three of them were was in the center area, open ended near the blazing fireplace and Wil’s beloved firepit. Soft lights illuminated whole deck, along with the heat lamps glowing with their blue and yellow flame.

Allison, it turned out, was right there. She was curled up in a large, cozy deck chair near the pit, cheek propped in one hand and the other holding a bottle of ale. She was fast asleep. Kay, standing at the pit with an oven mitt on and a metal tong, was poking at the grill. Tonight the pit was roasting buttered corn and what looked like asparagus and peppers, and even from inside the kitchen the aroma was divine.

Sean, from what he could tell, was bent over the back a large flatscreen TV giving instructions to Davey who was draped on one of the sofas, one leg hooked over the armrest, a TV remote in his hand.

He could only hear their muted conversation.

Entering all the way into the kitchen, he found Anne at one end, facing a tray stacked with mugs and a large liquid thermos, meticulously pouring dark chocolately goodness from a crock into the thermos.

He took a long whiff of the heavenly smelling liquid. “I think I found the right house,” he said.

Anne turned and saw him, and gasped with delight, flushed across her fair skin with the heat of the chocolate. She set down the crock, wiped her hands on her apron, and indicated with her fingers that he come give her a hug.

He walked over and did just that, also receiving a kiss. It was the first time they had really seen each other over the past couple of days, and he had thought it might be a little self-conscious for both of them.

Instead she gently took his beanie from his head, tousling his hair back to life and smiling at him, asking how the past few days for him.

He told her they had been great, feeling himself blushing a bit at what he had been up to with her son. She didn’t seem to mind any of that, beaming at him as though she was illuminated from the inside.

Turning busily, she indicated the tray and asked whether he would be so kind as to take them out to the deck.

He said, “Yes, definitely, no problem,” and then found he couldn’t break his gaze.

A little worried that he might be coming off a little weird, he nevertheless stood there staring at her, because he was suddenly remembering the night of his mother’s cocktail party. Remembering standing at the entrance to the dinning room, overhearing her careless talk about him.

He had never felt real warmth from his mother, but he had never been bothered by it. He had never thought that she owed him warmth. Aside from the occasional cuddling his nanny used to give him as a child, it wasn’t something he had grown up seeing. Therefore he hadn’t felt a deprivation of it.

But watching Anne flush with happiness because she thought he was a good thing that had happened to her son, feeling her exude so much warmth he felt sheltered by it, he unexpectedly wished that he had been cuddled and fawned over by his mother.

He wished that she had lighted up and kissed him with happiness and asked about his day when he came over. Instead she would ask what his father was up to.

It didn’t make him sad, just empty. Though he had to wonder whether this emptiness was what people meant in being sad.

Anne was looking curiously at him.

He came back to himself.

He turned toward the counter and picked up the tray. “Where do I take this?” he asked lightly.

She didn’t immediately speak. Then lowering her eyes thoughtfully, she took another moment before indicating behind her with a finger. “Wil has a telescope set out there, if you can believe it. The kids are going to join him there in a bit.”

“Okay,” he said, gently sliding out the tray. “Are these spiked?” he joked. “I heard about your cider.”

She made a dismissive gesture with her hands. “They’re all exaggerating. But Sean did make Deena think these are, so don’t say anything, the poor dear thinks the words means extra sugar.” She pulled open the door, and he laughed, promising that he’d keep the secret, and carefully stepped through onto the deck.

~*~

With the doors now open, he could clearly hear the conversation on the deck. None them immediately caught his presence with their seating being a little farther up.

“Go to setup,” Sean was slowly saying to Davey. “Select home sharing, find the network called jackson312, and hit enter.”

“How do I know if it’s a network, though? That is, how do I know which one is the network?”

“How are you an engineer?” Kay asked from the pit.

“By being a mechanical one,” Davey replied.

“Well, try joining us in the twenty-first century,” Sean said. “And you can start by getting rid of your al Qaeda phone. Get yourself a phone that can access networks, so you can know what the hell a network is.”

“Here we go again with the phone,” Davey said. “Hey, so when is Holden getting here?” he suddenly said.

Sean was silent, tinkering behind the TV.

“What’d I tell you about that?” he asked Davey.

“What, about not talking to Holden? What’d I tell _you_ about that?”

“You must like getting your ass beat.”

Surprised, he stopped in his tracks, still by the doors. It was news to him that Davey had a prohibition against talking to him. He took one quick look at the situation, saw an opportunity to uncover information Sean wouldn’t easily pass on, and took a second look at the planter next to him.

Setting the tray on it, he set himself down partially hidden under the large plant it bore, and got comfortable to hear some scuttlebutt.

Kay had plucked up an asparagus and was glancing at Allison, as though wanting confirmation of its state. But Allison was far off in slumberland. Kay then gave the stalk a taste, made a face, and plopped it back on the grill.

“Kay, help me out here,” Davey said.

“Hey, I’m all for sparing Holden the asinine crap you two put Michelle through back in the day.”

Both Sean and Davey grunted, while at the planter he lifted an interested eyebrow.

“You’re talking old news,” Davey insisted. “Holden’s my bud! I wanna hang out with him, hear what’s going on with my Jay.”

“What’s going on with your Jay is that he’s right here,” Sean said darkly. “You can ask me whatever you want to know instead of dicking around in someone else’s business.”

“You tell him, Sean,” Kay said. “You be protective of Holden. Michelle would approve. Right, Ally?”

She seemed to have forgotten that Allison was decidedly asleep. The bottle in her hand started slipping and Kay gently took it and placed it on the floor.

“Speaking of dick,” Davey said slowly, which almost made him laugh out loud. Because…okay. “You’re never gonna believe what I got Holden to tell me.”

Sean stopped and looked over the TV at Davey.

There was pristine silence during which Sean didn’t seem to know where to find his next words.

“Speaking of dick?” Sean said, affront keeping his voice low. “Did you just say those words in the same sentence as his name?”

Davey started laughing. Kay grinned and shoved peppers around. Davey held up the remote, trying to catch his breath. And despite Sean looking ready to pounce, it was really beautiful to see how untouchable the love between them was.

He knew what Davey was talking about, of course.

“You did _not_ get Holden to tell you the size of his dick,” Kay drawled.

“No,” Davey said. “ _Jay’s._ ”

The silence returned. Kay looked impressed, while Sean continued staring at Davey.

“Are you fucking high, Jones?” Sean asked softly.

Davey, struggling with his laughter, shook his head. “And guess what? Turns out I’m bigger than you.”

“In your fucking fantasies,” Sean immediately replied.

“Why are you having to ask Holden anyway,” Kay asked. “Don’t you two suck each other off first thing in the morning, while brushing your teeth or something?”

He caught his laughter before it snorted out of him. He had to check and confirm that none of them had heard him.

“First of all,” Sean replied. “You’re not bigger than me. You didn’t want it bad enough, Jones,” Sean continued, as though he had done his part and reminded him of a request to put in and Davey had slacked off. “Second of all, you’re full of shit. Holden would never tell you something like that, because he’s a very private person.”

_Well…_

“And when the fuck did this happen?” Sean then asked, contradicting his belief in his privacy policy.

“The night I helped him climb up to your room. I’m not kidding! Dude was scared shitless. He’d have told me in what position you like taking it up the ass had I asked him. Didn’t ask him though. Cause you know… a man’s gotta have his privacy.”

Kay was no longer poking at peppers and was simply standing with the tong by her side, laughing at the two of them.

So was he, though he was doing a good job of suppressing it. Especially since Sean looked beyond his ability to make any sense of it.

“I can’t fucking believe you,” Sean said to his friend. “And what the fuck were you thinking anyway, helping him climb up there? Up the side of a building, Jones? Does that even make sense to you? I shouldn’t have to tell you this but he’s got coordination issues, and if he’d hurt himself getting up there, I swear to God, I don’t know what I would have done to you.”

“He does have coordination issues, doesn’t he?” remarked Davey. “You see him that night at the bar? I thought he was wasted getting up to go to the bathroom, until I realized he hadn’t been drinking. And then, Kay, he fucking hit his head on the side of my Wrangler trying to get some from Jay the other day at Brett’s.”

“Aw…” Kay said, while he smiled to himself.

“That is fucking funny.”

Not really, but…

“So is it like in the movies, Jay?” Davey asked, sounding genuinely curious. “Does he fall off a ladder when he’s trying to change a lightbulb or something, and you have to catch him in your arms and lay one on him? Or are you like, _dude, what’s your problem?_ ”

He Kay, and Davey were in stitches. But Sean was simply waiting for Davey to finish.

“Are you listening to what I’m telling you?” Sean asked Davey quietly.

“No, of course not,” Davey said, as if Sean was the one being ridiculous. “It’s romantic as hell that he did that, and fuck falling off a building. He didn’t need any fucking flowers or candlelight dinners to own your ass, he was coming for you, hell or high water. That’s high quality man stuff all the way. Not that you’d get that. Am I right, Kay?”

“I just wish I could’a seen it. Ally couldn’t believe it when she heard. She thinks the three of you are peas in a pod.”

“No,” Sean said as if in answer to all the wrong questions in the world. “The three of us aren’t peas in a pod.”

“Probably not,” Davey drawled, back to looking for the right buttons on the remote. “But let’s face it, Jay. Had he hurt himself going up there you would have busted your gay dick getting the biggest boner of your life. You, getting to play wet-nurse to some good looking guy? That’s straight up motherfucking porn to you.”

His jaw slackened in surprise, amazed that Davey knew that much as well. It had taken him almost two years of being with Sean to figure that one out, having spent the first year or so wondering about Sean’s minimal porn consumption. Sean professed to not be interested in it beyond its basic draw, which had surprised him given how good he was at sex. That is, until he had fully accepted that Sean hadn’t merely been trying to score points when he had told him sex wasn’t his priority in relationships, that he had always wanted much more than that.

He realized at that moment that he had never really been at home enough in their relationship to take advantage of the things that pushed Sean’s buttons.

And now Sean was…subdued. Looking at him now, back to tinkering with the TV, it was all too obvious that 's finger had hovered a little too close to precisely one such button.

“Stop saying inappropriate things to him,” Sean simply decreed. “I get that we’re all guys, but I told you, I don’t want you saying weird things to him.”

“No, I get it. You don’t want me letting the cat out of the bag about half the crazy shit you’re into. I mean, who fucks on pull-types, right?”

Sean snorted softly. Then, to his utter astonishment, started grinning.

Davey threw a cushion at him, which Sean easily dodged. Then, giving up, Davey tossed the remote after it, which Sean caught without looking. He flipped it over, seeking the network settings himself.

He sat there in fascination. Not merely because he was imagining, probably incorrectly, what a pull-type was, but also because he was thanking all his lucky stars for the opportunity to have come to Johnston and discover this side of Sean.

The exciting-thrilling side he had whiffed from their first date together, but which he had never been able to locate.

Kay lowered the flame on the grill, moved to sit beside Allison on her chair’s armrest…and finally saw him. He lifted a hand at her, and she started laughing.

“Hi, Holden,” she called in a sing-song way.

Both men whipped their heads towards him. Davey broke into a grin upon seeing him, and faced forward again without a word, while Sean sort of paled.

He got to his feet and picked up the tray, preparing to go over there.

 ~*~

Instead, within moments, Sean was before him, gently taking the tray from him. Sean softly kissed him on the mouth, leaning over the tray to do so. Then he held the tray aside, stroking his arm with his other hand.

Sean was looking at him as though the two of them had just met, had the best sex of their lives, and now he was about to do everything possible to make him comfortable in his home.

On top of the unconsciously boyish manner in which Sean had kissed him, Sean’s earnestness melted away the scrap of protest he had wanted to voice at being relieved of the tray, and he let himself be led from the sliding doors.

“I excepted to come pick you up, sweetheart,” Sean was saying softly. “I thought you wouldn’t be here till eight.”

“Well, I noticed I had a rental car,” he said, supposing it wouldn’t hurt to tease. “So I got in it to see what that was all about.”

Sean, the granddaddy of witticism, gave him a blank look, not getting it. Then he caught on and had dignity to color a little.

While Sean took the tray to the other end of the deck, where Wil had indeed set up a large black telescope, Allison stirred as if coming awake. Saying a quiet hello to her, he got a sleepy kiss from her before she went right back to sleep, leaving him to go over and peruse Kay’s stacks of roasted corn and vegetables.

“How’s it look?” Kay asked him.

“Like I’m gonna eat ‘em later,” he said approvingly. She nodded firmly and turned down the heat, shoving the batch she currently had on the grill into a built-in warmer at its side. She added a fresh set of vegetables.

He made his way into the cozy setup, eyeing the deep, wide seats and pliable looking cushions. Opposite where he was entering, Davey was still lounging on one of the sofas, silently watching his progress with obvious fascination.

He sat on an unoccupied sofa, not sure which was Sean had claimed. He moved towards its end and started unzipping his jacket.

“So,” Kay began, ticking off the points with her metal tong. “Sean may or may not have a bigger dick than Davey, you’re a champ for climbing up to Sean’s room even though you were afraid of falling, and Davey’s not allowed to talk to you without first getting Sean’s approval.” She poked at the new batch of peppers. “Did I miss anything?”

Stripping off his jacket, he tried not to be inordinately amused by her summary. “I think that covers it,” he told her.

Sean had returned from the telescope and supposed to be checking the network setting on the TV, but had got back there and was standing there staring covertly at him taking off his jacket under the warm heat lamps.

Unless he was meant to be responding with a lick of his lips or something, he saw no other way to return the look, and so didn’t make eye contact.

Tucking his beanie more securely into his jacket pocket, he set them aside and he ran a hand through his hair and sat back.

“Hi, Davey,” he said carefully, turning to him. “How was your evening?”

“Pretty good,” Davey said, sitting up on his sofa. “Nice and cold out.”

He nodded, then did steal a covert look at Sean, to gauge his response so far, not wanting to agitate him any further about Davey.

Rather than giving Davey evil looks, Sean was still staring proactively at him.

He moved his gaze to Davey.

Davey, in his turn, was staring keenly at Sean. He seemed caught in a moment of trying to see what was happening inside Sean’s head as Sean stared at another man. As if looking for what he had missed all these years.

“Hey, Sean,” Davey said. “You know, you’ve never introduced Holden and me? You realize that, don’t you?”

Sean finished up at the TV, came over and deposited the remote on the low wrought iron center table. Then he came over and lowered himself to the sofa, getting very close to him. With his shoulder pressed into him, Sean stretched out his legs and folded his hands on his stomach. Then he leveled a look on Davey.

“I realized it,” Sean told him. “Which is something you should’ve considered before you went and did stuff behind my back.”

“Oooh,” Kay said. “Throw down.”

Intrigued, he waited for Davey’s reaction.

Davey had a thoughtful expression on his face, his sharp green eyes flicking as they gazed at Sean. He was seemingly engaged in a very specific thought. Then he sighed, sitting back for a moment, then heavily rose to his feet.

Straddling the center table, he easily stepped over it until he was leaning over to Sean.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t supportive of your PMS,” Davey said just as heavily, then bent and suddenly shoved his arm around Sean’s waist. “Come on,” he said in a commanding tone. “Let’s kiss and make up and still be friends.”

Then he yanked hard, and before Sean, or really any of them knew what was happening, Davey had forced him forward under the weight of his arm, causing Sean to slide forward to the edge of the sofa.

“Fuck, Davey!” Sean bellow ed, gripping Davey’s arm. But Davey had gotten a leg between Sean’s and had shoved them apart with his knee. Sean roared and twisted in an effort to get out from under him, but his movements only turned him in the direction Davey wanted, and in seconds they were nearly prone on the sofa.

Sean was held fast under Davey’s weight, struggling titanically to get out from under him.

And Davey matched him move for move, one knee trapping Sean’s leg to the back of the sofa, the other locking Sean’s leg against the sofa… in an apparent bid to keep him underneath him and in a prostate position… with the sofa rocking gently under their combined weight…

While he sat there staring in total disbelief.

It was Kay’s uncontrollable peals of laughter that brought him back to his senses. Though very slowly, as his addled mind was loathe to disengage from what his eyes were seeing.

He managed to send her an SOS look, which only caused her to further lose it, doubling right over. He quickly brought his eyes back to the men grappling and grunting, not three feet from his side.

Davey had finally gotten Sean how he wanted him, which was on his back and with his arms, from what he could see, interlocked with Davey’s. Their legs were still locked against the side and backrest of sofa, and in positions had to make him wonder whether the two men were fucking with him.

They had both stopped moving and Davey had his face, and his finger, close to Sean’s face and was whispering intensely to him.

“You need a drink, sweetie?” a voice gently asked from behind him.

He quickly glanced over his shoulder and found Michelle holding out a mason jar at him.

Behind her, the sliding doors pushed open wider, Wil was coming out hoisting another piece of black instrument which he presumed would be going on the telescope.

Blinking vacuously up at Michelle, he still couldn’t quite make his speech connect with his thoughts, and she simply came around and sat on the chair to his left, still holding out the jar.

In slow movements, he took it, his eyes involuntarily going back to where her husband— and his, were both now slowly getting up and… wiping off…

Not sure what he was supposed to say to her, left wondering whether maybe with women the scene presented a different picture…

Michelle, perhaps reading his expression, closed her eyes, slowly shook her head, and said a quiet “No.”

“It looks just as preposterous from where I’m sitting,” she assured him. “They just don’t care.”

He drew his lips into a tight line, wanting to withhold his opinion. But he was entirely unable to. “I wouldn’t use the word preposterous…” he began, searching at least for circumspection.

She flicked a hand, raising her jar to her lips. “Drink up, honey. We both know the word we’d prefer to use.”

He brought the jar up and took a mouthful, almost done swallowing the just-hot-enough liquid when its taste exploded in his mouth.

Quickly swallowing, he licked his lips and stared down at the jar.

Here it was, he realized, Anne’s infamous cider.

“What’s in this?” he asked in awe.

“Anne doesn’t say.”

“Wow,” he said, staring down at the golden liquid.

“I know.”

He took another swallow, ran his tongue over his lips, then blinked as the cider started taking effect. It might be a little bit of alcohol, but it was probably homemade. And maybe some… he licked his lips and told himself to not bother. Apparently more dedicated people than him had tried and failed.

Wanting, however, to figure out what he had just witnessed going on— over there, he got up and went over to sit on the chair next to Michelle.

“So…you’re okay with this?” he asked, shooting a look at the railing near the TV where Davey had cornered Sean and was still talking. “Cause I don’t think most women would be. I mean, they’d have a…problem with it, I’d imagine.”

“Holden, if they had sex it would be a relief. Maybe that way they’d get over each other and give the rest of us some peace.”

He drew a blank. She couldn’t have just said that. Or, she couldn’t have meant it.

“You know,” she said, an impish smile on her face. “I did wonder when Sean came out, though. So I asked Davey whether they had ever fooled around with each in high school and he burst into laughter in my face! Then he saw I was serious and then— just stared wide-eyed at me, like I was crazy. Then he started to explain to me why reality was different from the movies. I could have bonked him. But the idea seemed so strange to him, you know?”

He was visualizing her knocking Davey over the head with a tea kettle and finding it quite amusing.

“I suppose it would be like you fooling around with me.”

He smiled at her. “I would have fooled around with you in high school.”

She laughed in her lovely, tinkling way. “Well, then I guess my theory just went out the window.”

But he wanted to understand the relationship, and maybe, he figured, he was finding it hard to grasp because for him it was a new kind of situation. Had Davey been gay as well, and Sean’s best friend, he would never have questioned that it was platonic. But that would have been because the likelihood would have been that they had tried sex early on, and if it hadn’t been right, moved on.

But not having had that, and both men being excruciatingly hot, and him being gay…

“Don’t let it bother you, Holden,” Michelle said, kindly. “Sean’s been nothing but the best brother-in-law to me and you can count on Davey being the same.”

He raised an understanding hand. “Not worried at all,” he assured her, and sipped his delicious cider, and told his mind to please get out of the gutter into which it had happily lodged itself.

~*~

“So I have to ask,” he said to Michelle, his eyes on Sean. Sean and Davey were finished talking and Sean had gone to stand over Kay, saying something and pointing at the corn she was grilling. Whatever he was saying made Kay glare at him and swat his pointing hand, then she started shooing him away while Sean pretended to be confused over her manner.

He knew what was going on over there—Sean was an unabashed food snob and was probably explaining to her how she could have saved her corn from overcooking. Kay was simply holding the metal tongs pointed in his direction now, and Sean was complaining and backing up.

“What did they put you through that’s made Kay so adamant about them not doing it to me?”

Michelle stuck a finger in the direction of both men. “You see what just happened over there? That’s how it starts. They’re like two rambunctious puppies discovering their rubber ball all over again. If you guys lived in town, Sean is about to go through puberty all over again.”

_Ah, _he thought, smiling to himself. Well, Sean _was_ a late bloomer. Though, Kay was only somewhat right: he felt that whatever the reason, Sean was being overly protective.__

__He wouldn’t mind _that_ much, being a rubber ball between those two…_ _

__Then he went very still, his heart having tripped. For a brief moment he thought that he had actually spoken the thought._ _

__But sneaking a peek at Michelle, he found her finishing her cider._ _

___Good lord._ It was only natural and it wasn’t his fault, but had to stop thinking, period._ _

__Davey had came over and had tapped on Michelle’s waist to make her stand up. She had done so and he was about sitting down to pull her into his lap, when Anne opened the sliding doors._ _

__“Sean! Davey! Come get the rest of this stuff.”_ _

__Davey stopped, halfway into the chair, and swore softly. Michelle gave him a sympathetic smile and a loving rub to the back of his head. “She’s gonna get back every hour of pain you two caused her, you know that, babe.”_ _

__“Yeah, but for how long?”_ _

__“I could come help,” he offered, putting down his cider._ _

__“Oh, no,” Michelle told him, retaking her seat. Davey stood for a minute staring down at her like he was going to miss her. “It’s personal to Anne and Wil. It’ll be no fun it someone helps.”_ _

__Sean had started for the doors and Davey reluctantly joined him. They met Anne at the entrance and followed her in._ _

__~*~_ _

__Shortly thereafter, Sean and Davey emerged from the house balancing trays on which were plastic plates, mugs, mason jars, thermoses and pitchers were expertly stacked. Watching them, he had to admit Anne had them well trained._ _

__They were carrying the laden trays like waiters in a five star restaurant. And reaching the center table, they sorted and laid out the contents of their trays, placing the thermos, which contained Anne’s cider, under the table which he noticed had a built in warmer._ _

__Then they took the empty trays over to the firepit, and with fast, sure hands, withdrew the food from the firepit’s warmer and wrapped the roasted corn, asparagus and peppers in neat foil stacks. Then they stacked them on the trays and took them over to the center table. There, they neatly piled them in the middle of the table, then began work on place settings, complete with napkins._ _

__“Pretty impressive,” he said to Michelle._ _

__She leaned over and whispered, “It’s also a Midwestern thing. Apart from growing them so big here, the men are also taught some manners.”_ _

__From the way she had said it, he picked up on the view of an outsider. “You’re not from here?”_ _

__“Nope. Florida. We moved here when I was in my teens.”_ _

__“You don’t miss the sunshine?”_ _

__“Every day.”_ _

__He nodded appreciatively, much happier to know he wasn’t alone in his cold misery._ _

__“All righty,” Wil said, straightening with a sigh from the task of putting together the telescope. “Sean, get the kids, will you?”_ _

__Sean straightened as well from place setting, and had such a baffled expression on his face that he stifled a smile at the exchange._ _

__“With what hands?” Sean asked, holding out the paper plates he was setting._ _

__Wordlessly, Davey took the plates from Sean and continued place setting, while Sean stood there, getting a conjunctive look from Wil. Sean headed back into the house._ _

__On the way in, he passed a flustered Lewis and Barbara coming out._ _

__The moment Barbara and Lewis cleared the doors, the level of activity on the deck instantly shot up._ _

__The other morning at brunch Michelle had promised him that it would quickly become clear how a couple who looked so salt of the earth could have produced a son like Davey, who—to him anyway—from looks to behavior seemed such an exotic creature. But quite soon, they had shattered that misconception._ _

__They were in fact as blue collar as they came, but they had a couple years ago quit Johnston and now spent most of the year caravanning across the U.S. and Central America, getting into myriad adventures. They seemed quite sedate, and Barbara with her soft, high pitched voice seemed like a mouse who would be startled by other mice. But she was very much like Anne in that she would suddenly say the most bullshit-free thing and then talk right over your surprise._ _

__Lewis was salt-and-pepper haired and bearded and full of fanciful opinions and observations. He had prodded him with one or two questions on the situation with gay marriages in the various states, like some kind of visiting foreign magistrate, but at the brunch there had been too many interruptions and he had had to abandon his line of questioning._ _

__Now he came over and clapped his shoulder, shaking it as if to test for loose parts. “How are ya, Holden, my boy,” he growled._ _

__“I’m all right, Lewis,” he replied, grinning despite his awareness to not encourage some craziness. “How’s the stay going?”_ _

__“Not bad at all! Anne’s Camray all but gave up the ghost today, but we were able to manage.”_ _

__At that moment Sean exited the house, ushering the excited kids out a formation of twos. The children, Deena and one of her friends in the lead, were holding hands like on a field trip._ _

__“What happened with the Camray?” Sean asked, turning to Anne who was coming out behind him. “I told you I wanted to get you that new Fiat that just came out,” he told her as she passed. “I think you’d look cute in it.”_ _

__Anne waved a hand, making her way over to where Barbara was at the TV. “Oh, Sean,” she muttered. “That car is a piece of crap.”_ _

__He sputtered his cider, but quickly found a napkin to dab at his mouth, sure more than ever that Anne was a woman after his own heart. He felt vindicated that someone else recognized that Sean had the most plebeian taste in cars._ _

__But Sean, never to be convinced otherwise, though walking the children to the other end of the deck, was still looking at her like he would like to show her she was mistaken._ _

__The need to give some reassuring love taking over him, he excused himself from Michelle’s side. Downing the rest of his cider to her soft chuckles, he set the jar down and went to help Sean situate the kids._ _

__~*~_ _

__Wil had apparently connected the telescope to a smaller flatscreen, and was scrolling through an iPod in his hand. He was surprised by how tech savvy both sets of parents appeared to be. He always had to prepare himself mentally just to search for basic cable channels._ _

__While Sean left to get their food, he guided the children, all eight from the neighborhood, around the telescope and into their little area, watching them pile onto the oversized sofas like little turtles._ _

__Deena halted beside him and breathlessly squeezed him around the waist._ _

__“You smell like ice cream,” she whispered up at him._ _

__Surprised, he could have died laughing, bearing in mind it was the same fragrance Sean relegated to the world of high class male prostitution. Like he would know._ _

__He kissed her and told her thank you, then made sure they were all seated—the small things Allison had pervious explained to him—before crouching at their table and uncorking their thermos of hot chocolate. He poured out steaming mugs while they sat forward and stared like moths trapped in the aura of the gleaming black telescope._ _

__Wil had pushed a button on the remote in his hand, and a blurry image of what looked like cotton candy flicked on the screen. Then it suddenly sharpened, and what was clearly a pink nebula with pinpoints of light crystalized onscreen. The children let out a collective gasp._ _

__Without looking, the moment he set the thermos down, they all reached with a hive mind for their mugs._ _

__Sean returned bearing plates of corn and roasted vegetable just as the children all began taking large gulps. Nervously, he watched their frenzied activity for a split second, then felt very proud of himself for knowing what to do next._ _

__He stood up and hurriedly took the plates from Sean, who thanked him, and set them on the center table just in time for Sean to quickly grab and start distributing napkins._ _

__The napkins, thick linen instead of paper, were just the thing to do the trick and large splotches of dark brown liquid quickly hit them instead of clothing._ _

__He got out of the way, moving to stand behind the sofa facing Wil. Sean, coming around with him, slipped an arm around his waist and pulled him in very close._ _

__“That was pretty hot just now,” Sean said in a low rumble in his ear. “What you just did.”_ _

__Hands on the back of the sofa to support his weakened knees, he turned and looked at Sean, who was now putting his free arm around him, nuzzling his neck, and couldn’t imagine what things were going through his mind. Sean had, after all, wanted him to come home with him for so long…_ _

__Deena had taken a sip of her chocolate and had been peering intensely into her mug, and now looked._ _

__“Are these spiked, Sean?” she whispered, looking hopefully at Sean._ _

__Sean stopped nuzzling him long enough to look at her. “Big time,” he told her. “You know your grandma, she’s nuts. So go easy.”_ _

__Whipping her head at him, her eyes widening, she gasped. He gave her a serious, confirming nod, and she immediately drank up._ _

__“We all set, dad?” Sean asked._ _

__“Yup,” Wil replied. Then he looked up briefly at them, taking in their intimate entanglement. “Far cry from your attitude last Friday. Wouldn’t you say, son?”_ _

__“Oh, here it comes,” Sean said, but he saw the quick, slightly awkward look Sean flicked at him._ _

__He turned his face so that he was closer to Sean’s and asked, “What’s that look? You think you haven’t made up for that yet?”_ _

__“No.”_ _

__He drew a blank, a little surprised, and might have been troubled but for the way Sean had pushed up against him and was moving his fingers along his hip._ _

__Instead he got the message, and leaned in to whisper in Sean’s ear that he needed to be careful or he’d have to be explaining a much more adult word than spiked to Deena. Sean snorted, but safely slowed down his hand._ _

__He indicated at Wil with his head. “What is he doing?”_ _

__“He plays them a video about the galaxy or something and then he shows it to them on the telescope. Works every time to keep them occupied. Retirement’s a lot of work, huh, dad?” Sean added, raising his voice._ _

__“You would know, working five months out of the year.”_ _

__“Seven,” he immediately called back._ _

__Sean turned a surprised expression on him, which he archly returned._ _

__“Like the man said,” Sean added slowly to his dad._ _

__Wil chuckled. “Listen to you two.”_ _

__Behind them, Allison stood up and stretched slowly with a long, loud yawn. Kay shut off the flame, loudly declared herself done, and dropped the tongs on the grill._ _

__While she and Allison found a spot to get themselves cozy, he let Sean carefully take his hand like a little kid—or a pregnant wife—and lead him back towards their sofa._ _

__~*~_ _

__They took all their seats, all except Wil for now, and him very carefully stepping around legs so as not to injure anyone or himself._ _

__“Easy does it, Holden,” Davey’s low pitched drawl came from the other side of the sofas. He had to curtail himself from a deep laughter wanting to work its way out of him, because apparently Sean’s struggle with him earlier hadn’t done anything to back Davey off wanting them to become “buds.”_ _

__If Sean heard anything, he didn’t say a word, but got them squeezing in around the center table with the buttered corn and roasted peppers and pitchers of hot winter beverages._ _

__Within seconds, the neat service oriented stacks Sean and Davey had laid out were dismantled, arms crisscrossing to pile food on plates and hands pouring out jar after jar of cider._ _

__He sat back, about to devour his pile when Sean, seated so close to him he was confusing their arms and legs, began shifting and sliding his foot behind his. Then Sean adjusted both their knees._ _

__Stuck with his mouth open about to bite into his corn, his lashes fluttered a bit as the movement widened his stance a little bit more than he would have…expected in circumstance like the present. But he almost outright bit into his lower lip when he saw Sean glance ever so briefly at his now exposed crotch._ _

__Quite amazed, he didn’t so much as glance up from his plate. He simply lowered the corn, reached for more butter, and spent an inordinate amount of time slathering some his corn, not stopping even when he was sure attention wasn’t focused in their direction._ _

__Sean slowly leaned sideways, clearly aware of what he was doing and aiming for his ear. But he quickly cut him off, turning all the way into his space. “Don’t you dare excite me,” he whispered fiercely._ _

__Sean paused, looking like he was considering whose was the better approach. Actually had the nerve to look like that while he was still having to breathe shallowly so as not to pile all his sources of excitement—being here with Sean’s family, having Sean mentally and emotionally back with him, remembering what those legs had done to him that afternoon to make him bark at the ceiling like a crazy person._ _

__Sean opened his mouth and leaned further in._ _

__“Stop it,” he repeated fiercely._ _

__Sean at last sat back._ _

__He discreetly looked up and found that Michelle was watching their display, laughing silently and so hard that he suppressed a smile and simply shook his head._ _

__Lewis, having taken a seat at the open end of the setup, next to where his wife and Anne were still talking at the TV, started telling them that the best corn to be had, even better than in the Midwest, was in Mexico._ _

__And so while they waited for the mothers to find the correct settings for their external hard drives, both families around the table fell into talking about vacations. How many they been on together, which side had picked the most destinations, where they should consider going next._ _

__He was listening, entranced by the unreal deliciousness of the corn—if it was better in Mexico, he was all for heading to Mexico this evening—and the docile spell of the wonderfully mundane conversation itself._ _

__Then Lewis suddenly spoke out. “Holden, ought to pick our next destination, yes?”_ _

__He frowned and shook his head. “No way.”_ _

__“Why not?” Lewis demanded._ _

__“I’d be terrible at it.”_ _

__“How could you be?” Wil called from the telescope. “Your family sells some of the most beautiful resorts and hotels in the world.”_ _

__“Actually,” Sean interjected dryly, licking butter from his lips, and thankfully done eyeing his crotch and everything else. “He would be terrible at it. He can have a great vacation just sitting with you in your backyard.”_ _

__He smiled, turning to look victoriously at Sean. “I’m having one right now.”_ _

__Sean inclined his head to his point having been made._ _

__Remembering all of a suddenly, he added, “Sean’s been fantasizing about bringing me home to meet his family for three years,” he told them, his feelings of love floating on his voice._ _

__“Fantasizing, huh,” Davey said slowly. “So for Sean, this is erotica. Well, good thing there’s butter for this here hot corn.” Then he looked across the table at him and winked smoothly. “Right, Holden?”_ _

__By now he should have been prepared for anything from Davey. But somehow he still wasn’t._ _

__He sat there with his mouth hanging open, mid chew. Nearly everyone had choked on their corn, Kay and Allison having to wipe some from their noses, and then everyone started yelling all at once at Davey, with Michelle’s quiet, “What have you been _reading,_ ” permeating the noise._ _

__He didn’t even want to see the look Sean must be giving Davey._ _

__When the noise had quieted down, Davey sent Sean an exaggerated look of surprise._ _

__“Jay, back me up here. I’m just looking out for you.”_ _

__After their tussle earlier and following whatever they had talked about after, Davey seemed determined to egg a response from Sean. He held his gaze on Sean._ _

__It made him throw a quick look at Sean himself._ _

__Sean, licking excess butter from his lips, seemed to be deciding whether to harm Davey now, or later._ _

__Michelle’s continued quiet laughter reached him. He watched her lean towards Kay. “You know, it’s actually fun when you’re not the rubber ball.”_ _

__When everyone had cleared their throats of coughed up corn and the noise had died down a bit, wanting to show some support, he turned to Sean and said in a firm, soft voice, “You’ve never heard of anything so ridiculous, have you, baby?”_ _

__There was a fraction of beat, in which Sean seemed to have stopped breathing, and then his face exploded with a brutal blush._ _

__His eyebrows going high, he watched as Sean’s neck and ears, to the roots of his hairline, flushed as darkly as he had ever seen._ _

__It stunned even him, and all attempts to pretend offense at Davey’s words, for everyone, went straight out the window._ _

__He was laughing so hard he had to simply turn and hide his face behind Sean, gasping for breath._ _

__Amidst the howls, Sean was saying something to Davey, but he didn’t think anyone could hear them._ _

__When they eventually all sat back again, back in some semblance of control, Davey was shaking his head as if his best friend was hopeless, Michelle was wiping tears from her eyes, while Kay and Allison seemed to have lost a fresh mouthful of corn._ _

__Lewis had a big grin on his face and was shaking his head._ _

__He himself was still looking at Sean. “Really?” he couldn’t help whispering. Not looking at him, Sean seemed to have shut down. He leaned over. “Come here,” he whispered, and Sean turned to him and shared with him the softest kiss. Actually feeling the heat from Sean’s face, he moved his lips up higher and left a warm buttery peck on his mustache._ _

__Pulling back, he noted that Anne was observing them._ _

__Of course, he realized. Except for one or two moments during the day, she hadn’t ever really seen them like this. Now she was looking at them and appearing a little emotional. Especially when her gaze moved to Sean._ _

__Lewis loudly cleared his throat._ _

__“All of which brings up—”_ _

__“Ah-ah, Lewis,” Barbara interrupted, eyeing her husband from the TV. “They’re gay, not Rodgers and Hammerstein.”_ _

__Davey looked up. “What’s about to happen?”_ _

__“Yeah?” Lewis asked, himself baffled._ _

__“Your father wants to ask all Sean kinds of inappropriate stuff.”_ _

__“Not Sean,” Lewis said pointedly, extending a finger straight up in the air._ _

__“They’re not on Broadway, Lewis” Barbara said, still eyeing her husband. “It’s their private business.”_ _

__“What’s our private business?” Sean asked._ _

__“Getting married,” Barbara replied._ _

__“Yes,” Lewis immediately took up. “I want to know what is— This is only if you don’t mind, Holden.”_ _

__“Sean’s permission really doesn’t count?” Michelle wondered quietly._ _

__Lewis brushed Sean’s permission aside with a hand. “Holden, may I?”_ _

__“How can he mind if he doesn’t know what you’re about ask him,” Barbara breathlessly asked._ _

__Lewis turned slowly to her. “It’s polite to ask ahead of time.”_ _

__“When ya gotta ask, you know you’re about to ask something offensive,” his wife slowly responded._ _

__“She’s got you there, Lew,” Davey said._ _

__Taking slow, careful mouthfuls of his corn, lest he spew it before he knew what hit him, he was barely holding it together._ _

__Beside him, Sean was contentedly eating his corn, tapping into the warmth of his leg and disregarding it all._ _

__“I think it’s okay for Lewis to ask,” he told the group._ _

__“Thank you,” Lewis said in distinct tones, as if to the only other gentleman at the table. “What I would like to know is, what is it like to have another man propose to you? Surely that must have been quite an experiential moment for you, even being gay.”_ _

__“Oh my _Gad,_ Lewis,” Barbara cried softly, and he pretty much lost it._ _

__“You get worse every year, Lewis,” Anne said._ _

__“Now, what—“ Lewis began, defending himself._ _

__“You never asked me what it was like to propose to Allison,” Kay interrupted, ponderously._ _

__“Yeah,” Allison demanded. “What are we, chopped liver?”_ _

__“No, no, it’s different being men. You women…who knows what you get up to in private. But as a man, Holden,” Lewis continued, turning fully to him now. “ _Even_ being gay, is marriage really something you contemplated for yourself growing up? Because let’s face it,” he added, harrumphing a bit—in deference to the women, he supposed, “Marriage isn’t something we men sit around waiting to come spinning our way.”_ _

__“Anne did take me for a spin,” Wil said over from his side of the deck._ _

__“Precisely,” Lewis said. “So what was it like for you, unique among us men here, to be proposed to?”_ _

__The gathering actually fell silent, only the sounds of the kids talking animatedly behind them to be heard._ _

__Then Sean calmly spoke. “Make it good, sweetheart. And don’t afraid to leave out the funny part.”_ _

__He smiled, knowing what Sean was referring to. But Sean needn’t have worried. He didn’t think he’d come off the embarrassment he now felt at his panicked reaction to Sean’s proposal enough to discuss it in public._ _

__“Well, I think— for one, it’s a perfectly legitimate question, because popular culture only ever shows you a certain side of being a gay man.” Peripherally, he noticed Sean glancing at Anne, who to his surprise seemed to be coloring a little. He smiled lopsidedly at Lewis._ _

__“ _I_ never really thought about getting married. I mean, it wasn’t… something I really grew up, ah, wanting for myself. But obviously, coming from a different background, Sean did. And so in the end I guess it just boils down to the individual.”_ _

__“And what was it like?” Lewis prompted._ _

__“It was…a little scary,” he said honestly. “But I suppose like with everyone who knows it’s right, felt incredible, like you’d finally put your feet on solid ground._ _

__Davey was nodding profoundly. “What’s the funny part?” he suddenly asked._ _

__“The fact that I said he could leave it out, and here you are asking,” Sean replied._ _

__“I’m a little curious myself,” Kay said._ _

__“Ditto,” Michelle said._ _

__“It’s that I used to be a jerk,” he said evenly._ _

__Everyone looked at him. He only shrugged, even if self-consciously._ _

__“Well, I heard you used to be an _adorable_ one,” Davey told him._ _

__He laughed a little. But he held back, because Sean seemed a little tense. Knowing it was on his behalf, whispered to Sean that it was all right._ _

__Having spoken the words, they oddly hadn’t been as difficult to say as he had feared. There was no sense of condemnation or judgment from any of them, and he felt that somewhere along the that way every one of them might have fucked up just as he had._ _

__They made him feel like a real person. And the thought then came to him, _This is my family.__ _

__Davey had began informing them that the town was thinking of sponsoring an annual Super Bowl cookout with the Jacksons because this year’s had been so successful, and before he could even get halfway through his sentence everyone started booing._ _

__Allison explained for his benefit that before Sean stopped participating—“Right about three years ago,” she said, meaningfully, and Sean took the grumbling around the table in stride— they used to travel to whichever city the Bowl was being held, find a restaurant, and have themselves a big party with the locals._ _

__“No one wants to hang out in town for the Super Bowl,” Michelle said. “What’re they thinking.”_ _

__“They can have it without us,” Anne replied. “They’re certainly welcome to the house.”_ _

__The two women then finally declared themselves done, prompting Wil to quickly finish up on his side._ _

__Wil came over, leaving the kids with the video of the cosmos now running, stopped before their TV and peered at the cable connections._ _

__“Was this connected by a pair of monkeys? No wonder it took you ladies so long.”_ _

__Sean and Davey exchanged astounded looks._ _

__Wil kissed his wife, told her softly that she had done a fantastic job of hooking up the external drives, and found a seat. He started loading his plate with corn._ _

__Anne pushed a button and their TV showed a couple of hard drives, one labeled Jackson and the other Jones._ _

__“So am I finally going to see naked baby pictures of Sean?” he asked generally._ _

__“Obligatory,” Wil assured him. “Anne, you’ve waited how many years to show them?”_ _

__Anne waved offhandedly, though she did look the most eager of everyone. She made her way into the open rectangular setup behind Barbara…and was making her way right over to him and Sean._ _

__Anne came all the way, stepped by Sean’s legs, and began sitting down between the two of them._ _

__Surprised, he remained as he was, but Sean was forced to shift, and then stand up altogether to make room for her to sit down._ _

__Squeezed in front of the table, Sean simply stood there and stared down in utter confusion at the two of them, his expression so comical he had to quickly bring his gaze back and control his smile at Anne._ _

__Davey, arms on the back of the sofa on either side of his wife and his mother, called softly to Sean to come sit with them, while Allison caught his eye with a wide-eyed “Wow.”_ _

__Anne, fully aware of the slight commotion she had caused, didn’t seem to give a good damn.  Sean took the space next to Michelle and Michelle compassionately rubbed his shoulder, giving him a sad face that should only be reserved for a hurt little boy._ _

__While he and Kay fought bursting into laughter that would have left him in tears, Anne patted his knee, then asked everyone if they were ready to watch the show._ _

__“By all means, Lady Anne,” Davey cordially told her, and Kay and Allison completely lost it._ _

__~*~_ _

__The show was everything he imagined these types of moments to be. The soft sounds of the kids’ Milky Way video providing a soaring background score, he stared breathlessly at beautiful scans of the past. Old Polaroids and Instamatics glowing from the wide screen in sepias and jewel blues._ _

__The photos were ridiculous, adorable, and all simply perfect. He had long since put aside his plate of food, the cider still making his mouth water minutes after having finished it and his vision buzz with a heightened sense of perception._ _

__First the kid years: photos of Allison as a little girl in pigtails, smiling confidently at the camera. It was like seeing a fair-skinned Deena, and it left Kay needing to get hugged. And Allison, he noted, had been a Girl Scout._ _

__“Of course,” he told her, shaking his head with a smile. “And thank God,” he added, throwing Sean a look, which made them all laugh._ _

__Then there were photos of Davey, a few months older than Sean and the devil in his eyes, as Louise would say, already showing as a seven year old. They were followed by pictures of Sean, and the photos immediately they gave him a strange sense of displacement, as though he wished to ask the little kid who he was and what he wished for himself when he grew up._ _

__It was such a strong emotional tug that he was relieved when the photos progressed to them slightly older._ _

__Sean and Davey with their front teeth missing. Building forts, gaping at gorillas in a zoo. Both sported identically spiked hair through most of the pictures, then mohawks, then buzz cuts. They were physically entangled in almost every one, and one in particular brought a groan of happy memories from both of them, and just groans in general from their families. The image of both boys filled the screen: arms interlocked, caked in mud and grass and still wearing their dirty shoes…blissfully asleep on a pristinely made bed._ _

__“And that was _our_ bed in the hotel,” Anne explained._ _

__“Best day of our life,” Davey said in reverent tones._ _

__“What was it?” he asked._ _

__“Mom and dad took them to Camp Pendelton’s Mud Run,” Allison replied. “After that, dad had to put a hole in the backyard and give them a permanent mud pit.”_ _

__“Had to take out the sod and everything,” Wil said, gazing in amusement at the photo. “Gosh, I haven’t seen this one in a long time.”_ _

__And then came the teenage years. And here he found he couldn’t breathe. Sean and Davey in high school. Growing from gangly little kids to jailbait teenage boys. He did his best not to so much as twitch with Anne sitting so close to him._ _

__Then there were football practice pictures, the parents sitting and waving from the bleachers, and Michelle looking striking as a young ravenhead, cheerleading uniform tightly fitted on her with her pompoms at her side._ _

__Davey groaned something unintelligible. To which Michelle swatted his stomach._ _

__“I was sixteen!”_ _

__“I was there,” he croaked._ _

__But he was staring unblinkingly at the prom pictures of Sean with his then girlfriend Yvette._ _

__Sean didn’t look unhappy, or uncomfortable. Sean had told him while they had talked about his childhood the night they had reconciled, that he had had two nice girlfriends in high school._ _

__And looking at the photos now, the girls had to not only have been nice, but outright saints. Because Sean had slept with neither of them, and he couldn’t fathom the level of self-control it took to put up with that gleaming young man he was seeing in the pictures “respecting” you by not not wanting to defile you at all turns._ _

__He gave Sean a quick glance. Sean was looking at him and trying to read his expression. It would be the first time he had seen Sean romantically attached to a woman. Or with anyone else, really. He smiled reassuringly at him._ _

__Then it was Allison in her teenage years. A self-assured smile, stunning, curvy body, a look in her eyes like she would take on the world._ _

__“Lord, I thank you,” Kay intoned._ _

__“She was a beautiful child,” Barbara agreed._ _

__“Strong willed,” Lewis declared._ _

__“Don’t remind me,” Wil said._ _

__Then the parents in their youth. In old apartments. Beautiful Anne, tall, ruggedly handsome Wil with the same wry expression on his face. Lewis passed out on a bed. Barbara befuddled. The two of them with their first caravan._ _

__“Look at how small it was,” Lewis marveled._ _

__“We had the best times in it, though,” Barbara said coyly, while Sean and Davey moaned._ _

__“Well, where do you think you come from, Davey Jones?” she asked in amusement._ _

__“From the goodness of our hearts,” Lewis snarked, making Sean cackle and Davey grin. Both men gave them the points._ _

__And then a slew of family vacations photos. Those with the best or most vivid memories of the times provided riveted commentary. Anne, Barbara and Allison in bathing suits, Wil buried in sand up to his neck by both boys. Lewis lounging in a beach chair reading a newspaper. When he had questions or needed elaboration, he whispered to Anne and she filled him in._ _

__Amidst the cavorting family members, a photo of Sean and Davey popped up, both young men in their early twenties, facing a beautifully ornate garden wall. “Such a beautiful church,” Anne murmured beside him. “Somewhere in Georgia, I think,” she said quietly, before noticing why everyone who wasn’t a parent was snickering. Sean and Davey were pissing against the beautiful church wall. “Oh, how did _that_ get in there,” she scowled._ _

__“I took that picture,” Wil said suddenly and somewhat proudly. “I thought it was…rather artistic.”_ _

__“Nice one, Mr. Jay,” Davey said, sounding just as proud._ _

__Allison and Kay’s wedding came next. Kay ravishing in a slim fitting dress, Allison looking quite like a vision in one with a train. Gauzy veils everywhere. Sean and Davey dressed in matching cummerbunds, looking rather idiotically like two matching grooms, followed by a series of heart warming ones of Sean crying on Allison’s shoulder while Allison held him._ _

__“Sean was a mess that day,” Allison recalled affectionately._ _

__“Weddings are weird like that,” Davey said, but even he could tell that Davey was just trying to cover for Sean in what was clearly a hilarious and straightforward losing of his shit at his sister’s wedding._ _

__Then Davey and Michelle’s wedding. Sean had obviously been best man, to the very beautiful couple. Photos of Davey carting a screaming Michelle firefighter style over his shoulder. There was a couple Anne told him were Michelle’s parents, but there were lots of pictures of Barbara hugging and fussing over her new daughter._ _

__Then Deena’s birth, the two families around her baby years, one with Sean with her baby carrier strapped to his chest, Sean clearly about to go jogging._ _

__“Fastest way you could get her to sleep when she was a baby,” Allison said. “Remember, Sean?”_ _

__“Deena’s always been my girl,” Sean said, grinning. And he took in how Sean glowed watching the rest of the sets with Deena—him and her waving from a sled, playing football with Davey in the snow, he and Davey sitting side by side watching a football game, with her squeezed happily in the middle._ _

__“Future commissioner of the NFL right there,” Sean said of Deena’s grinning face. “First in a long family line.”_ _

__Serenely, he wondered whether he should ask Sean to teach him how to play touch football._ _

__The show ended, of course, with the requested classic naked baby pictures— of everyone._ _

__It was truly hilarious, seeing all those confused, pink and hapless babies and trying to match their expressions with their present owners._ _

__And he could only smile at one of Sean at nine months, dressed for Halloween as a caterpillar, with the same calm, thoughtful expression on his face._ _

__“Is that not the face of a championship quarterback,” Wil said with pride._ _

__The family cheered, bringing about the show’s end._ _

__“Next time,” Wil said, “Holden, you’re up.”_ _

__He gave a noncommittal response, hedging, not sure how desperately they wished to look at stilted photographs of overdone birthday parties. Sean had gotten up and was stepping over legs and side tables to come over to him, and he used the reshuffling to cover._ _

__But once Davey stood up, reaching to take Michelle out of the circle, both sets of parents broke out in exclamations, reminding both men that they had to “put all this stuff away.”_ _

__Sean looked in surprise at Davey. “Unbelievable,” he exclaimed, while Davey told him to just come on._ _

__~*~_ _

__The evening wound down as he and Davey cleared up the leftovers. His dad was having a blast teaching the neighborhood kids about nebulas and dark lanes of gas, Holden was out there with him, and the rest of the group were out there talking with Barbara and Lewis._ _

__Allison, though, found him later in the pantry._ _

__He was putting away unused cartons of chocolate mix when she came and stood in the entryway._ _

__“Hey, you.”_ _

__He glanced over to find her getting comfortable leaning against the door jamb._ _

__“Whatever it is, I didn’t do it.”_ _

__She was, however, smiling sweetly at him._ _

__It was the first time she had smiled at him like that in a really long time. He stopped what he was doing and turned around, resting against the shelves._ _

__“I guess I did okay,” he asked._ _

__“You did great, kiddo,” she said, nodding slowly. “I’m very proud of you. And for this morning. Good job on really being there for those kids.”_ _

__“Thanks.” He gave her a hopeful look. “Would you say, uh…my coming out process has been completed after these last few weeks? I gotta have something to write in my journal.”_ _

__“Yes,” she smiled. “Write away. You found your prince and you’re ready to enter your castle.”_ _

__He nodded over and over. “I’m definitely ready to go be his princess.”_ _

__She laughed, folding her arms. “So what’re you gonna do when you guys get home? I know you know, but I wanna hear.”_ _

__“I’m gonna take it easy. He’s not the type to hold on and let things bother him, so I know I’m lucky there. But there’s a lot I need to learn to handle when it comes to him.”_ _

__“Just know that he loves you very much. So much so that he’s sometimes too scared to be honest with you. That’s all, Sean. Get mad at him all you want when he upsets you,” she told him candidly. “But you don’t ever have to walk away from him again. He did a good job keeping up a strong front from the minute he got here, but there were times when he was pretty freaked out.”_ _

__He slanted a look at her.  “It’s called trust, right?”_ _

__She pressed her lips together and nodded._ _

__“But can I still trust to call you when he does get me mad?”_ _

__“Yes, silly. And now that he’s got my number, I expect him to call whenever you act up as well.”_ _

__“He’ll never call.”_ _

__“No?”_ _

__He slowly shook his head. “I wish he would, but he just ignores me when he’s angry. Until it passes, which could be whenever.”_ _

__She snorted, still smiling. “That works.”_ _

__He didn’t think he had seen her this happy since the day he got drafted into the league._ _

__She straightened from the doorway. “Come here,” she said, waving her fingers._ _

__Her eyes were glistening as she hugged him warmly, a big sisterly hug like she hadn’t given him in ages._ _

__She then put her head on his chest and commenced rubbing his arm, sniffing. Then pulling back, she told him to go, she’d finish up in there._ _

__Knowing she just wanted a private place to wipe her eyes, he did as he was told._ _

__Outside, he sat on the same planter Holden had hidden under and scoped the deck._ _

__Michelle and his mother lost in conversation with Barbara and Lewis, following their journeys over the past seven months. They were missed badly, and he held out hope that their wanderlust would exhaust itself and bring them back home to stay any day now._ _

__Holden was sitting with his dad, both their feet up the center table, talking. All around them the children were fast asleep._ _

__It was unreal having him here. He was perfectly aware that he had been doting on Holden a bit much since Wednesday, but it was better than his wildest fantasies. To think of the Holden who used to stay on the other side of town whenever he started mentioning his family too much, being here with him. It _was_ erotica._ _

__And on the rooftop at Ahmenson’s, he had gotten it wrong. His was in fact a sentimental love. Holden was the only man he had ever met who made his insides feel like mush. Holden’s smile, his warm laughter, his need to charge his batteries against his naked back first thing in the morning were all the reasons his feelings of attraction had gone into a deeper love. And though he wouldn’t deny that love was full of hard lessons, he was conscious of the fact that since the day he had met Holden the world looked softer, everything more optimistic._ _

__Maybe people loved for all sorts of reasons, but he loved because his heart was warm and despite all his previous misgivings, safe with Holden._ _

__As he had begrudgingly accepted it during their Super Bowl cookout, he accepted it now with deepest gratitude, that his family had taken Holden as one of their own._ _

__But their stolen time was almost over._ _

__Watching Holden now, he could see that even with his layers of clothing Holden was being brave about not looking like the weather was a problem for him. But that wasn’t the only thing he could see._ _

__The jacket was inside the house now, but earlier on, when Holden had first arrived, it had received many involuntary glances. And he presumed it wasn’t that pointlessly expensive looking beanie doing the stalking._ _

__Lost in thought, he hadn’t noticed that Davey came out from loading the dishwasher. Davey spotted him and came and sat next to him._ _

__“Are we taking a break?”_ _

__“I’ll be back in in a minute.”_ _

__Davey was looking at him. Then he turned and looked at where Holden and Wil were contentedly talking away._ _

__“It’s weird,” Davey said, referencing the admonishing he’d given him earlier. “You really are different with him. It’s not like with Michelle at all. Maybe it’s because we’re older.”_ _

__Then Davey turned back to him. “Or maybe it’s because he _has_ unlocked a secret part of you.”_ _

__“And what part is that?”_ _

__“The part that’s a six foot-two, two hundred and twenty pound, pissed off schoolgirl. Who also happens to be one hell of a quarterback.”_ _

__He snorted softly, then briefly laughed. “I’ve missed the fuck out of you, Dave.”_ _

__“Don’t get me started. Just bring your ass home more often already.”_ _

__“Yeah,” he sighed, knowing he would, seeing as fear of losing Holden’s attention had been what had kept him away for so long._ _

__“I will,” he promised. “Before I come back home one day to find out that Louise has been running guns out of Baker’s or something crazy.”_ _

__“Wait for it.”_ _

__He glanced at Davey, the rushed tone in his voice making him feel that Davey had been holding something back from him. Or that it was pushing to come out of him._ _

__Davey was now staring at the floor and…blushing._ _

__Blinking, he opened his mouth to speak but no words came. He didn’t think he had seen Davey blush since…maybe fourth grade, when Davey developed a raging crush on their homeroom teacher._ _

__“Hey, so, uh…”_ _

__And then Davey stopped._ _

__Flabbergasted, he said, “What the fuck’re you doing?”_ _

__Davey broke into a big grin. Then he looked at him and said, “Michelle’s pregnant.”_ _

__Now he took on an idiotic look. He could feel it. His heart had stopped working and it was turning into long seconds._ _

__Then it kick started, tripping at an accelerated pace so that he felt like he had to put his head between his knees. “What?” he said faintly._ _

__“She’s not telling anyone yet,” Davey said composedly. “Until it’s past a certain stage when we know everything’s good. You know. So it’s just the three of us for now.”_ _

__But he was just staring at Davey. “We’re- we’re gonna be dads?”_ _

__Davey burst into deep, quiet laughter. He lifted a hand. “Please don’t say that around Michelle. She’s already scared the kid’ll come out blond.”_ _

__“Jones,” he said hoarsely._ _

__“I know,” Davey immediately replied, just as softly._ _

__“Are… we ready for this?”_ _

__Davey stared at the floor for a few moments, deep in thought. Then he nodded and looked at him, his eyes alight from the inside in a way he had simply never seen. “We’re ready,” Davey assured him._ _

__He blinked, taking in a long, steadying breath. “Holy fuck,” he whispered to himself._ _

__And when he finally looked around, he saw, at last, that everything had in fact changed._ _

__Davey looked across at Holden. “You wanna go introduce me to your guy, now? I’ll let him have you, you know. I heard he takes good care of you.”_ _

__He lowered his head and nodded. Yeah, he was finally ready._ _

__~*~_ _

__While Sean and Davey talked, Anne sought him out._ _

__He had been talking to Wil, who had been telling him that Sean was “a good kid.” That he just had a soft heart, and that whatever insecurities Sean had let run the show, it was all over with now._ _

__“He was just hurt,” Wil had said, emphasizing the word in the way he had, as if he had located the loose bolt and could now recommend a fix. “And you know how we men get when we’re feeling a little defensive.”_ _

__He had leveled a look at Wil. “The next time he runs home, you send him right back. Deal?”_ _

__Wil had laughed richly. “Deal.”_ _

__Wil had had to then oversee the dispersement of the kids, who, refusing to leave the telescope, had curled up and fallen asleep all over each other on the sofas. With the heat lamps going over them, Wil had said it was fine and they had placed blankets over them and settled in to talking._ _

__Now some of the parents had began arriving, and Wil was waking them up to walk them inside. He stood up to help, but Wil insisted that he remain seated. A bit confused at that, he nevertheless did, then saw Anne approaching from the corner. He slowly sat back down, realizing she wanted to see him._ _

__Feeling slightly nervous all of a sudden, he sat forward and watched as she sat down, putting her hand on his knee. She was holding a batch of old style photo envelopes, the kind developed photographs used to come in. She sat comfortably and asked him how his night had been._ _

__He blinked several times, somehow feeling on the spot. He told her his night had been more than anything he could ever hope to put into words._ _

__She nodded, letting out a soft breath, then asked him how things would be in LA._ _

__His heart beat faltering, and unable to speak around his nervousness, he could only think was that everything he had been fearing had been right. That they were worried that he couldn’t do it in LA. He wouldn’t be able to take care of his relationship in LA and that Sean would shortly be coming back frustrated and embittered once more._ _

__“I-I think, um…”_ _

__But he didn’t know what to tell her._ _

__“It’s okay, dear,” she said gently. “I know things are a little different there. I just wanted you to know that you two are no longer alone. You have to ask for help at any sign of trouble. I mean real trouble,” she insisted. “Like the one you’ve just been through. Not the ones I’ve been hearing about over the years with you two carrying on.”_ _

__He nodded firmly._ _

__She brought up the envelopes clutched in her hand and placed them in his. “I’d like you to see these photographs. I’ve always kept a favorite set of pictures of both my kids I call my secret stash. These are the ones of Sean.”_ _

__She patted his knee and then left him alone._ _

__Slowly, he opened the envelopes, not quite sure of what to expect. He pulled out the first set…and then sat there staring at the photographs._ _

__Here were the photographs he hadn’t known he had wanted to see. They were photographs from Sean’s late teenage years, and instantly he could see why she kept them separate, why they had not featured in the earlier family showing. These were vulnerable, special. All of a time, all somehow capturing ethereally the period in which it was clear that Sean had become all too conscious of his sexuality. Conscious of its meaning, and of how he was going to cross from childhood into manhood bearing it._ _

__Holding each for long moments, he studied the grinning, broad shouldered, and fair haired young man who had so gracefully dealt with his secret. But surrounded by love, he had taken that with him going forward and had chosen not to focus on the bad, the spiteful, or the just plain cynical. He had made a lot of people very happy, and not just football fans._ _

__He looked up to where Sean was now talking to Michelle, leaning against the wooden railing with Davey at his back. Davey was lying on the railing, silently staring up at the night sky._ _

__Sean was raptly nodding as Michelle spoke to him, rubbing his shoulder and gently pointing at her stomach while Sean smiled sheepishly. She appeared to pose a question and Sean nodded firmly, and she wrapped her arms around his shoulders and hugged him tight. Sean hugged her back, and even from here he noted that his eyes glistened._ _

__He didn’t know many men like him. To see him now as a young man seemed almost too raw, and it made him want to go back in time and protect him and every last boy like him from the harsh realities of the world._ _

__He could no longer dream of letting this go, of letting this family go._ _

__Later on in the evening, he watched Anne give Sean lots of love._ _

__Seated away from the rest of them, she had her legs curled up under her and had her son’s head on her shoulder. Whatever they were discussing, the rest of the family had left them alone. And he avoided looking at them entirely, not wanting to interfere even with his gaze, but he saw that Sean wasn’t saying much, just listening to her talk._ _

__And he could see that whatever had brought Sean home, whether it had been him or things before him, had also brought back home the twelve year old boy who, so many years ago, had run away in fear of losing his mother’s love. As far as he could tell, they were both, mother and son, sitting right there in front of him._ _

__~*~_ _


	3. Chapter 3

The night sky had turned blacker, the stars boldly out, the backyard cozily snowed in, and the deck warm…ish. 

Actually, it was just the right temperature, a little cold so that you wanted to get warm with someone, and warm enough so that you sustained your body heat. Weather for two, Sean had informed him.

And so it was just the two of them.

With everybody else inside, he had expected that they would be too. But about to follow, he had found himself halted by Sean’s finger in his pants pocket, the look in Sean’s eyes perfectly clear that he wanted some time alone with him. So they had stayed back to “enjoy” the cold winter night.

Taking a wide deck chair, he had waited while Sean pulled up an ottoman that turning the chair into a long chaise. Sean had then indicated with his finger that he spread his legs, and he had slowly smiled and complied. First Sean lowered himselfIn no time, Sean was wrapped in his arms, his head warm in the crook of his neck, and the two of them quietly enjoying each other’s company.

As much as was going on in his mind, he took a long, steadying breath and wiped it all clean. All he held on to was the feeling of what tonight had been, indeed what his entire stay had gifted him. It could only be compared with his feelings from last fall. Though so different, it was essentially the same frisson of excitement, that something profoundly new had opened up inside him.

His natural inclination would be to walk a little, from the bed to the bathroom, or the length of his kitchen might have sufficed. Instead he thought back to that morning seemingly so long ago, with Sean calmly waiting in Paula’s backyard like a harbor in stormy waters, to talk him out of the shell he had ensconced himself in.

He kissed his man on his temple, and sat there absorbing his calm strength.

“That was a party at the local offices this afternoon,” he said, referring to that morning in Des Moines.”

“Yeah, I was supposed to be there last week. Glad I didn’t get the chance. I think I looked more respectable with you there.”

“Oh, so you noticed.”

Sean chuckled quietly. “Yeah.”

“And this morning, talking to the high school kids,” he said softly. “Must’ve been a little like talking to your younger self. Especially with that boy at the end.”

“Pretty much,” Sean said contemplatively. “I never felt what he felt at that age, but I’ve never been more glad to have been at a place than that morning. Right place, right time.”

“It was great practice for the foundation. And you handled it really well.”

“Thanks,” Sean said. “And silly me, not a politician in sight.”

“They have their uses,” he admonished, tightening his arms around him, while Sean merely quirked one corner of his mouth.

“I liked what came after even better,” he said, lowering his head. He brought his mouth to Sean’s ear and whispered, “You were amazing this afternoon.”

Sean fell silent. Holding him as he was, he could feel Sean’s deep, steady breathing and knew exactly what was going through Sean’s mind.

“Was there anything I might have done differently?” Sean asked eventually, soberly.

“You mean so I wouldn’t have your palm print on my ass and my brain in your crotch? No.”

Sean was silent. He then slowly found the hem of his pants legs and began pulling it up. He slipped his fingers underneath, pushing his winter socks down, and replaced it with his fingers. He began brushing his skin.

“I had a good time,” Sean said quietly.

“So, is that an admission, surrender…or are we talking sufferance?”

Sean repositioned his head so that his mouth was close, and was suddenly whispering a firestorm into his ear.

He groaned painfully as the words hit him, barely able to speak above the way his body was responding. Stifling a gasp, he lowered his head as Sean deliberately went on, his breaths helplessly trembling out of him as he was unable to control where his thoughts had sped to.

“Throw some snow on my face before you lose me,” he panted.

Sean eased up on him, his heated eyes on his face as he watched him try to regain his faculties.

“That was mean,” he moaned hoarsely.

“But it answers your question, right?” Without waiting for him to answer, Sean took a breath, exhaling slowly, and buried his nose against neck. 

“You smell really fucking good,” Sean said heavily. “I should get my credit card. Or do you take cash only.”

“Haha,” he replied weakly. “Well, your niece thinks I smell like ice cream, so what do you know.”

“She said that?”

“Yeah. And here you are thinking I smell like a hooker.”

“Not a hooker,” Sean replied, his weight so heavy against him he was sure it was all that was keeping him from fully developing an untenable situation. Though the hand that had left his socks and was cupping its way up the back of his leg was doing nothing to help matters. “More like a high class, high priced, call boy,” Sean told him. “One worth every penny.”

“You keep talking, Sean Jackson.”

Sean pecked a kiss underneath his jaw. Then he lightly touched the skin with his tongue.

“What are you doing,” he moaned softly.

“I like to sample the goods first.”

“What is wrong with you?” he complained. 

In response, Sean shifted slightly closer and whispered suggestively, “Put your hand down my jersey. Play with my nipples like you did in the car.”

Now he had to laugh. Sean was on a mission to drive him crazy.

“Right here in your parents’ backyard?” he asked.

“It’s a fetish of mine.”

“Oh, really. And what about at Alastair’s house?”

The words had left him before he heard the name of his problem floating unanswered in the cold air.

“Maybe we’ll rectify that.”

“Now you say,” he grumbled, covering his reaction.

And that was when Davey joined them.

Sauntering over, he watched as Davey pulled up a chair until it was right up against Sean’s feet. Davey sat down and lifted first one leg, then the other, and placed both of them on Sean’s legs.

Now comfortably part of their intimate space, he sat back, not unlike how Sean would do it, with his hands folded on his stomach, and eyed them both.

A bit surprised by the bold actions after Sean’s attitude that evening, he waited for the inevitable protest from Sean.

In spite of Sean’s stated reasons for keeping Davey at a distance, he knew what Sean was actually feeling was a self-awareness about his vulnerability to him. He got it, as to a certain extent it was the same way he felt when he thought of his own friends being in the same room with Sean. There was a history there he felt didn’t quite gel with the future he wanted to create.

But only to a certain extent, as he didn’t have close to the kind of relationship with his friends that Sean and Davey shared, and if you asked him, Sean was being silly and Davey was right to push through.

No protest came from Sean, however. Following which he suddenly, and excitedly, realized that this wasn’t defiance on Davey’s part but Sean finally accepting reality.

“Sweetheart,” Sean said slowly. “This is my brother Davey. We’re not really related, but that’s just a technicality. Davey, this is him. The only man that’s ever taken me away from you.”

Davey’s eyes moved to him, and involuntarily he tensed a little.

Suddenly, he remembered that when they had first met in his hotel suite he had felt that it was a meeting somehow more or just as important as the one with Sean’s parents. For some reason he still felt that way, sensing that despite all the jocularity, Davey was intensely protective of Sean.

Davey smiled at him. “Welcome to the family, Holden.”

About to reply automatically with a thanks, his heart instead unexpectedly lost its rhythm. He hadn’t expected the sensation of hearing those words to affect him so strongly.

Catching a breath, he quickly recovered and said his thanks.

“Okay,” Davey said. “Ask me anything. Sean’s given me permission to tell you all his secrets.”

It was Sean’s turn to tense, until he realized that Davey was kidding.

But it made him glance down at Sean, wondering what secrets—aside from pull-types and buttered corn—were making him so jittery. Then again, he had his, parked mostly with Elliot and not about to be revealed for any reason. Expect perhaps under pain of a new no-sex rule.

Mentally, he shook his head. Sean was such a closet-case hellraiser that he couldn’t even handle the thought of the two worlds meeting. At least now he could reconcile the Sean he saw on the field with the polar bear he met during the offseason.

Davey, jaw propped in one hand, held his look steady with a spark in his eye. “So Holden, when are we gonna hang?”

“As soon as you’d like,” he immediately replied, recognizing the gleam enough to play along.

Davey gently shook his leg so that he got Sean’s attention. “Wanna come?”

He tried not to laugh, but Sean could certainly feel him doing so. “I’d— I’d never dream of taking you up on your offer without Sean being there.”

“He can’t find his forebrain without me being there. I’d like to see him try and get to you without me knowing.”

Davey laughed, his eyes actually looking delighted. “You’ll see in a minute.”

“Okay, I have to ask,” he interjected. “I know you were kids, but I wanna know how you two met.”

“Oh, beautiful,” Davey replied, and extended a finger at Sean. “When we were seven, this was about three months into second grade, this kid comes up to me and says, Hi, Davey Jones? I’m Sean Jackson. We have to be friends.”

He started laughing, hardly believing it. “Why would some kid come up to you and say that?”

“Because,” Davey said. “I’d been put in charge of all the gym stuff for the rest of the term. Baseball bats, basketballs—”

“—footballs,” he and Sean said in unison. “And Mr. Folger, our gym teacher, had told Sean to come and assist me. But Sean here left that part out and just told me what he had to say. So I looked at him— and forget those pictures tonight, you had to be there to believe how angelic he was as a kid—“

He couldn’t stop laughing, believing that.

“And I said…okay,” Davey said, shrugging exactly as he must have as a kid.

Sean was laughing deeply, his head moving against his jaw as he shook it. “You were such a dumbass.”

“At least I looked like one.”

“So what happened, when did you guys find out?”

“We followed each other around for the rest of the term, then in January, after Christmas break and we hadn’t seen each other, we all but fell on each other panting with joy and gratitude at being together again. Then Sean—” Davey broke off, and started laughing so hard he placed his hand over his eyes and just fell apart.

Sean was shaking with silent laughter against him. He took it all in with fascination. And he noticed, also, that they seemed to call each other by their given names when others were present.

Davey sighed deeply, rubbed his finger in his eye, and said, “Sean sought out Mr. Folger, and teary eyed, asked him whether he and I could remain friends even though out tenure as equipment manager and assistant was up. Mr. Folger had the biggest what the fuck look on his face you have ever seen.”

Sean nodded. “He did.”

“That’s when I found out as well, and _I_ was like, what the fuck, you were _using_ me?! I thought we were friends because we _had_ to be friends. Not cause he was using me to climb up the corporate ladder of grade school gym status. I got all mad. And you have to picture a seven year old mad, right? I stormed out of school that day railing, and Sean cried so hard his dad had to call my dad to find out what the _hell_ was going on.”

He was laughing so hard he had to have his head back to breathe. Davey was likewise gasping for air, while Sean laid against his chest, grinning.

“It was pretty nuts,” Sean agreed.

“So what happened?” he managed to gasp, wiping his eyes.

“Our dads tried to get us on the phone to figure out what happened, but Davey had started crying by then too. It was just a loud mess of accusation slinging, and after about a minute our dads just hung up and said fuck it. We had to sort it out ourselves. It took us, what,” Sean asked Davey.

“It took us a couple of days,” Davey confirmed. “The preliminaries alone… It was like a draft pick,” which sent Sean further into fits of laughter.

“And after that, life was just one big blur of— Davey stopped abruptly, surprisingly emotional, and let out a breath. “Life was a fucking blast. Until this one here went off to play football.”

“But before that, there was Michelle,” Sean said.

“Holy shit,” Davey agreed.

“What happened with Michelle,” he asked eagerly.

“So senior year of high school,” Davey explained. “Here comes this transfer. By then we were living legends and we used to get away with murder. But here was this tiny sophomore who didn’t give a flying fuck who we were. She would scream holy hell down the hallway after us after I’d unleashed some nonsense in her locker. She used to put the fear of _Jesus_ in us. I mean, we would just go pale.”

Sean laughed. “I kinda knew it was over for Davey by then.”

“I put up a good fight, though.”

“If you wanna call it that.”

“So what happened after that?”

“Well, we graduated, Sean went to play at Wisconsin-Madison, and we all spent the next ten years hanging out, following Sean’s career.”

“And then one day,” Sean prompted.

Davey sighed like a man reliving a good time in his life. “One day, after Michelle and I had shown up for one of Sean’s games on a freezing fucking cold day in Indianapolis, Sean pulled me aside and told me it was time to get serious with her.”

“Was this when you were with the Colts?” he asked Sean. “Let’s see you played for the Vikings for two years, then the Colts for three, before you went to San Diego. So you guys were…between twenty-six and twenty-eight at that time?”

“Wait, I thought you didn’t follow football,” Davey said.

“I don’t. I mean, not really.”

“But you know his career?”

“And his record. Cold.”

“How many completion throws with the Colts.”

He reeled it off. Then he smiled. “That was a gimme. Give me a tough one.”

Davey did. But he answered even before he was done asking. Davey’s eyebrows disappeared into his hairline.

“You wanna pull your dick out, Sean? Cause I know you know this is hot stuff.”

He laughed, wondering whether Davey knew how close he was to the truth for Sean.

And so he raptly listened as they recounted the rest of the tumultuous story of how Davey had unsophisticatedly pursed Michelle, had spent many-a weekends at Sean’s apartments and houses throughout the years when he had needed to get out of town.

Sean, with obvious pleasure, related how Davey would sit in his living room and hyperventilate into a paper bag because having had enough for that time being, Michelle would calmly inform him that there would be no communication between them until further notice.

But Sean had stood by his best friend, and had housed and cooked for him, and time and time again, had helped him nurse his broken heart back to life.

“Until one day,” Davey said, pride in his voice. “I just kinda started getting it right. And everything was smooth sailing.”

“Until you panicked a month before your wedding,” Sean appended.

“Yes,” Davey said firmly, making him laugh. “But that I panicked staying right where I was.”

“I’ll give you that,” Sean mumbled.

And then they were all three quiet for a while.

“You two gonna get married before the fall?”

“That’s the plan,” Sean said quietly.

They fell silent again, with him back to trying not to think beyond the moment.

Davey nodded slightly, and when he saw at the stillness and maybe understanding in Davey’s eyes as Davey looked at them, he knew that the night had finally come to a close.

Davey sighed and stood up. Then, straddling Sean’s legs, which meant straddling his as well, he moved up and sat square on top of Sean. Thus seated comfortably, Davey wrapped him in his arms, leaning forward to do. 

The movement had to have Sean breathing Davey’s underarm, and certainly had him effectively sitting in his lap and facing him. Davey didn’t seem to care. He held him tight.

Then Davey pulled back, clapped him on his shoulder and said, “Be happy with my brother.” 

Then he patted Sean’s cheek, stood up and left.

Despite everything he had seen and heard about Davey, he was astounded. “Did he just sit on you and hug me? He really doesn’t care, does he?”

“You have no idea.”

He simply stared after him, then thought he ought to prepare himself for things to come, because now, it suddenly occurred to him, that was his brother too.

Then he glanced down at Sean, and there was an understated melancholy about him.

“What if you stay and I go back,” he asked, moving slightly so that they could properly look at each other. “I-I know it’s been a while since you came home and I think it would mean a lot to them if you spent a few more weeks home.”

Sean wasn’t looking at him, his downcast eyes obscured by his softly blinking lashes.

And he, for his part, had no idea how he was saying the words about the tightness in his chest.

“I’m— I’m sure could find a way to cope for a few more weeks while you’re—” he took a breath around his stuttering heart beat and stopped talking. Trying again, he calmly said, “I’m sure we could find a way to manage it.”

Sean’s lips pulled into a tight line. “I love you for offering,” he said in a voice barely above a mumble. “But I could cope with not seeing them for another hundred weeks, than be separated from you for another two.”

His breathing had calmed, but his heart ran away from him.

He leaned forward then stopped and watched, a little astonished, as Sean with his eyes still down, began to blush. Tenderly, he kissed the side of his face. “I love you,” he whispered. “And it would be my pleasure to take you home.”

~*~

They made it back to the hotel before midnight. With Sean sleeping in the bedroom, he went into the living room, sat at his work desk, and called Elliot.

“H!” Elliot cried, apparently eating. “Oh, my _God,_ I am beside myself with joy that you called. Because wouldn’t you know, Petey and I are looking at pictures of you and your _ridiculously_ gorgeous mister— on his hot as french fries friend’s Facebook page. Hold on.”

“And _who,_ might I ask,” Petey cried, the phone sudden on speaker. “ _Is_ that delicious mouthful of cake?”

“He’s straight,” he said softly, laughing. “And married.”

“Neither of which has ever formed a necessary barrier for our Petey,” Elliot said.

“What! I’ve never dated a married man!” Petey cried in perfect seriousness, perfectly oblivious to what it left saying about his choices. “Oh, wait,” Petey murmured, realizing.

Elliot started laughing while Petey offered a blasé “Whatever,” and he was laughing with delight at their appealingly simple lives.

As his had once been.

Sighing, traced his fingers over the lid of his closed laptop. “I’m coming home, you two,” he said softly, and Petey sucked in a soft, dramatic gasp.

“Mission accomplished?”

“Yep.”

“We’re getting married,” Petey gasped.

He laughed. “Yes, we are,” he said softly.

_Please, please, God, let this go smoothly._

“What should we tell Craig?” Petey asked in a faux caring voice. “He’s been fucking half the boys in your office right there on your desk. He is not going to like having to give that up.”

“I’m going to tell him you said that, Petey.”

“Craig can bite me.”

“What did he do now?” he asked into the phone.

Elliot was laughing once more. “Craig told Gay Bryan to meet us at the Peninsula—”

“Stop calling him that!”

“—when we were actually in Bel Air and by the time Petey had called him to find out where he was and why he was late, _Straight_ Bryan had spent over two hundred whole dollars on valet and drinks. And was not happy at all when he arrived where we were,” Elliot finished happily. “Hence, Craig being on Petey’s shit list for the time being.”

“Well, make up before I get there,” he told Petey.

“We will, sweetie,” Petey cooed. “Oh, I’ve missed you so much. Can’t wait to see you!”

He hung up shortly after, heading back into the bedroom, where he stood in the doorway and watched his sleeping husband-to-be.

He had once told Sean of how to deal with the madness his parents’ world could bring, and that was to keep his eyes on the prize.

Now he reminded himself of that. Staring at Sean’s breathtaking, sleeping form, he told himself that all he had to remembered was that he already had the prize.

Moving from the doorway, he climbed back into bed. Closing his eyes, he gave in to the feeling of belonging as Sean draped his arm around his waist and still asleep, pulled him in.

Or he’d thought Sean was asleep. On his back, he lifted his head and followed Sean’s descent as Sean shifted down the bed, wordlessly reaching for his pajama bottoms under the sheets. In the next instant he was breathing at the ceiling, then looking down again when Sean pushed the comforter off his back, holding down the front of his pajamas and never taking his eyes off the cock he had stiffened with his actions.

Sean lowered his mouth, swallowing him all the way, and he slid his hand into Sean’s recently cropped hair. Clutching the mattress behind his head, he gave in completely to Sean’s hot, pumping mouth.

Practicing for what was promising to be an even better version of their sex life, he immediately gave in to his real life fantasy of being sucked off by an NFL quarterback. He was arching and climaxing within seconds.

~*~

And so they had nothing left to do but leave for LA.

Being a Sunday morning, a platoon of people had shown up at Anne and Wil’s, as had everyone from both families. So before saying goodbye to each other, they were saying goodbye to a steady stream of neighbors and children and pets.

It was a cold, dry morning. The day looked as if nature had forgotten to turn on all the lights it needed to make it truly seem like morning. The skies were a light grey and a brittle little wind kept flowing feathery snow into their faces.

He had hugged everyone of his new family twice, except for Anne and Wil, who were staying back and looking very emotional. Allison, he clutched her hand and couldn’t seem to let go, until she kissed his cheek and told him to call her as soon as he felt like it. He nodded.

With Kay, they just kept hugging over and over, and for him saying goodbye to her was like being pummeled in the gut. She had been his friend and lighthearted companion. It seemed so long ago when he had walked into Louise’s cafe to meet her for the first time, to properly acquaint himself with any one of Sean’s family, and it seemed so ill advised now that he felt he would need her, he was parting ways with her.

Michelle hugged and kissed him, and firmly told him to call or come back if they needed any help with the wedding. He nodded. 

Davey hugged him, then stood back and grinned at him. 

“Way to go, Prince C.”

He tried talking, but a soft lump had lodged itself in his throat and resisted every effort to get around it.

He wanted to tell Davey that he liked that nickname a lot. That it gave him something to live up to.

Lewis and Barbara hugged and advised him to pick a great vacation spot for his wedding. And to see Mexico.

Sean was carrying Deena, who was weeping inconsolably. Sean looked affected himself, but was taking it with a grain of amusement. But his heart went out to her. On the inside he felt no different from her.

Sean, seeing him finish up with Lewis and Barbara, whispered to Deena and gently handed her to Allison. Then he came over and took him by the hand, smiling at him. He followed him, his heart beating, as Sean had told him what he was going to do.

At the time it hadn’t really made sense to him. But now the moment seemed essential, and pressing.

Sean walked him over to Anne and Wil, who were standing side by side and waiting, apparently having been prepared by Sean as well. Sean brought him until they were both standing facing them, his own skin flaming in a flush, and he waited as Sean indicated him with a small gesture.

“Mom, dad,” Sean said in a voice that trembled with emotion. “I’d like to introduce you to Holden. The man I love and plan to marry.”

He gave them a tight lipped smile, knowing he probably looked as emotional as Sean felt, and was grateful when Anne simply pulled him in for a tight hug. His breaths were shaking out him as he attempted a more controlled offer of a handshake to Wil. Instead Wil pulled him and gave him a tight hug of his own.

“I’ll see you soon, son,” Wil said gently to him, and he swallowed hard and nodded.

Then Deena came back, her face crumpled as she held on to her mother.

“Come here, sweetheart.” Sean took her, then, turned to him and pointed. “You know who this is?”

She nodded. “It’s Holden.”

“And who is he?”

“He’s your feeyansay.”

“That’s right. When I’m not here with you, I’m in LA with him. So if you need me and you can’t reach me, you call him. You can talk to him, and it’ll be just like talking to me. You can tell him anything and he’ll take care of you just like I would. And sweetheart, you know you’re going to be the flower girl at our wedding, don’t you?”

She looked surprised. 

“That’s right. So no more tears, okay?”

She nodded, and Sean slowly slid her to the ground. “Go say goodbye,” Sean said to her, and she walked over to him, tears welling in her eyes once more.

“I’m trying to be a big girl,” she told him.

“You are a big girl,” he assured her, crouching to accept her hug. She tightened her arms around his neck, sniffed, and started to cry again.

He reluctantly released her, kissing her on the cheek. Then she went back to Sean and buried her face against his hip.

And as he went to wait by the Audi, Davey, last of all, strolled over to Sean, and the two of them hugged. And for a long while, they stood like that with Deena at their side, her arm around Sean’s leg.

Davey eventually slowly pulled back, eyeing Sean. They didn’t say anything to each other, just grinned and seemed to pass some secret wordlessly between them.

Allison then extricated Deena, and Sean came over, and he opened the driver side door while Sean got into the passenger seat. He had told Sean he would drive because he was sure Sean would want room to unknot after this.

They got in, waved to the quietly accepting it group on the lawn, and he took a huge, silent breath and started the car.

They drove in silence, getting onto the highway and making their way up the snow feathering tarmac in good time.

At a certain mark along the highway, Sean looked across the windshield out towards a section of woods they were passing and asked if they had time before their flight.

“Yes,” he said, glancing at what Sean was looking at. It looked like any other winter-stripped woods.

Sean pointed to a certain area and directed him to pull over up ahead.

He did, and they got out. Sean took him into a copse of trees, walking a short distance clutching his hand. 

They didn’t have to go very far when Sean slowed down, and Sean didn’t have to tell him why they were slowing down in the middle of an empty woods.

It was a mystical winter landscape. That was the only way he could describe it. Dark winter trees, perfectly spaced, reached up to the sky while all around was a thick white blanket of snow. Here the purpose of the short gusts of wind could be clearly seen— it dusted snow into curtains that shrouded and fell. The same went for the eerie morning light. Here it ensconced the feeling of a stolen place and time.

Not fifty yards from the highway, the place was ethereally silent.

“Am I buzzed?” he asked, looking at the white mist rising from his lips, then looking warily around.

A soft, highly amused smile narrowed Sean’s pale blue eyes. “Did you drink anything?”

“No…” 

Sean lifted a finger, caught his chin with a soft stroke. “Well, then.”

But it was…surreal. It was— 

Despite how night-and-day his attitude towards romance had become, this couldn’t be happening to him. He felt… 

He lowered his head, slowly shook it. He was going to shoot himself if he was about to cry. 

Sean was refusing to rescue him from the moment, and he understood why. He had to believe in this. In everything he had seen and felt.

“It’s perfect,” he whispered. “ _You’re_ perfect.”

But the truth remained that his time of joy was over, his reality was coming back to hurt him. He dropped his head and struggled with himself. Then he whispered, “I don’t want to go back to LA.”

Sean touched his chin once more. “I know.”

He lifted his eyes at Sean, who looked so quiet and strong, so sure of himself.

“But I’m in LA,” Sean told him. “And we’ll be okay. You believe me, don’t you?”

He nodded. He truly did.

Sean pulled his arms around his waist, waiting until he had locked them there, before removing both his gloves to softly touch his hair.

He breathed on him, watching the white mist rise between their faces. They held each other’s eyes. Then Sean lowered his head. He closed his eyes as their mouths softly touched. 

They began to kiss, while their real lives waited patiently around the corner.

~*~


End file.
